Newton Elementary School got a good sprucing up last week, thanks to the efforts of a wide-range of volunteers from the Newton community.
The group of volunteers, which consisted members of the community, businesses, school employees, and students, worked diligently from Wednesday to Saturday to help get the elementary school ready for the first day of school in August.
According to Kay Killens, who was leading the charge of the group of volunteers, Mayor Antonio Hoye should get the credit for getting the effort underway. “The way this got started was that Mayor Hoy contacted me and asked if I’d be interested in asking around for some volunteers to come and help freshen the campus and help prepare for the school year,” she said. “Of course, I was happy to do that. We’ve had a great response to it and a lot of hard working people. We’re just been excited about what we’ve been able to get done.”
The list of accomplishments made by the community volunteers include pressure washing the sidewalks and concrete areas, painting both the interior and exterior of classrooms, painting the exterior of the administrative office, repairing the chain-link fencing that secures the playground on campus, rewiring the fuse box and repairing the water damaged walls and bathrooms in the teacher’s lounge, cutting of grass, trimming of shrubs, and lots of cleaning.
Killens said she was really pleased with how the community showed up and showed out this week. “I’m so thankful for how the community came together to get the elementary school ready for the coming school year. We had Jamie Baucum and Southern Pine here removing rust from handrails and priming them for painting, cleaning culverts, rewiring the fuse box and replacing wall panels in the teacher’s lounge. It was great to see them and Mississippi Power out there together working to get power restored to the lounge. And ESCO plant manager Chris Rule volunteered his time this week, while ESCO donated paint and supplies. Andy Rowzee, who is retired from ESCO and very instrumental in the community, has been a big help by going to town to help get our supplies for us and securing our rental equipment,” said Killens. “Ryan Weaver and Green Thumb Outdoors saw us working on the campus and came back with equipment to mow the grass, weed-eat, and trim shrubs. And Nena Hammond and the Chamber of Commerce have been great help. she has been helping out here, she’s reached out and got us a couple of donations to help with supplies, and she bought lunch for our workers one day. It was such a great turnout, and we can’t thank them enough.”
Killens added that there are a couple of other jobs they plan to take care of before school starts, one being to repair the flagpole on campus with a lift provided by ESCO and a new flag donated by the Woodmen of the World. Also in the works is Dottie Armstrong will paint designs on the front classroom windows.
Newton Municipal School District Superintendent Dr. Glenda Nickson said that the district was grateful for work done by volunteers. “On behalf of the Newton Municipal School District Board of Trustees and myself, we are extremely grateful and thankful for efforts that’s been done at our elementary school and the community support and the volunteers that continuously show up on our behalf,” said Nickson. “We would also like the community to know that there’s a volunteer link on our NMSD Facebook page and website, where anyone can sign up and submit their information and let us know what they’d like to do for the school district, as far as our facilities. But not only our facilities, but volunteer to interact with our scholars and with our teachers, we welcome all volunteers and community support.”
Even with the greatly needed improvements completed last week, Nickson added that there’s still plenty of work to be done at the elementary school, including improving the HVAC system, window replacements, and enclosing walkway corridors to ensure safety.
“We are greatly appreciative of the efforts by the community this week and we ask the community to continue to call us and reach out, because there is much work to be done,” said Nickson. “Our ultimate goal for our elementary school is security, and we’ll continue to research and explore options to secure our campus.”
