P.A. Walsh receives a facelift from students, volunteers
When students and teachers returned to P.A. Walsh Elementary on the Monday after the Oct. 1 Comcast Cares Day, they found their school dramatically different from how they left it.
A total of 500 volunteers – children, parents, teachers, Comcast employees – gathered at the school Sept. 24 to spruce up the campus. They came armed with paint brushes, shovels, hammers, trowels and even jackhammers.
“It’s just really cool what they’re doing,” said Shanley Sullivan, 11, a Walsh fifth grader who volunteered for a number of chores around the school. “Our school is going to look much better. I like helping with the work outside. It’s hard, but I know it helps our school.”
Shanley’s mom, Chris, who is the president of Walsh’s Home & School Club, said she was very happy with the numbers of volunteers from the school that showed up to help.
“I was also very pleased to see the support from the district and the city,” she said. Superintendent Alan Nishino and Mayor Dennis Kennedy, as well as several school board members, visited the campus while the volunteers were working.
Comcast, a nationwide communications company, arranges one day a year to support their local community. Last year, nearly 30,000 employees and their families across the United States participated in the fourth Comcast Cares Day. Comcast Bay Area has chosen to devote their Comcast Cares Days to supporting local education.
National and local sponsors provided food and supplies for the volunteers.
Last year, Comcast beautified the El Toro Elementary campus. National and local sponsors provided food and supplies for the volunteers.
At Walsh, Comcast and school volunteers also refurbished the teachers’ lounge with decorations, new microwave ovens and wall clocks, turning it from a slightly shabby room to a comfortable retreat.
“It’s wonderful to see what we could accomplish in one day,” Walsh Principal Esther Corral-Carlson said. “This school needed some attention. It’s a great campus. It just needed a little attention. We are so pleased that our school community turned out in such numbers.”
The campus bloomed as volunteers planted flowers in freshly weeded and turned flower beds. Bushes were trimmed, leaves and branches were raked, and the volunteers planted a tree.
Students and children of the Comcast volunteers wielded paintbrushes, shoveled dirt, pushed wheelbarrows and picked up trash on Walsh’s 52-year-old campus. They even found the time to create colorful bags to donate to children displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The bags will be sent to Comcast locations in the Gulf Coast states.
“The cleaning-up stuff was fun, but I really liked making the bags,” Shanley said. “I like to know it will make some other kids happy.”
School Board President Shellé Thomas said she was “inspired” by what she saw during the campus cleanup.
“It’s this kind of connection between the business community and the education community that is going to help us strengthen education for all children,” Thomas said. “As we have seen before, when we work together, good things can happen for kids.”
The condition of a campus affects the morale not only of the students but of the staff, she added.
“When your campus has that run-down feeling, it’s going to touch everyone, from students to teachers to your clerical staff,” she said. “When we all come together to refurbish it, it not only makes the campus a much more pleasant place, it also sends the message that we value our students and our staff. And those in the school community that participate in the cleanup, they have that ownership, that feeling of satisfaction that they took care of their campus.”
Marilyn Dubil covers education and law enforcement for The Times. Reach her at (408) 779-4106 Ext. 202 or at md****@mo*************.com.
