Everybody grabbed their shovels this weekend and came out to the quad to participate in Mustang Pride Day. Pride day is coordinated by PTSA and is a community wide event for all those who love YLHS to come out and embrace the school. During this special event, students and volunteers worked to help clean up the campus and make our school shine brighter.

With over 100 participants, all hands were on deck to clean the school. Due to recent campus landscaping this year’s event was scaled down. Mrs. Shank, a PTSA advisor, found that,”this year because of the landscaping there was a smaller requirement to tend the planters, however we were able to focus on the smaller things really cleaning every nook and cranny.”

In order to clean the campus PTSA had planned to divide and conquer. All volunteers who signed up were split into groups with their requested friends and assigned to an area to cover. Once that group completed their area they could move to areas that needed more help. From the hard work of students, long distance track runners and men’s basketball we were able to remove the grotesque items that were staining our gorgeous campus. Items such as the gum wall in the junior parking lot and the trash mountains left in corners that are neglected. With the help of our janitors we were able to clean everything that needed to be cleaned.

While cleaning Meghan Mortensen (10) realized that, “honestly, it’s terrible how people take our campus for granted and think that, ‘okay one little wrapper won’t kill anyone if I toss it here’, but little do they know that small piece is part of something bigger that makes our school look bad.” Realistically speaking, if everyone were to toss a small piece of trash here and there the effect would be even larger. Larger pieces are easily more visible can can be tossed easier than having to clean every small piece. All trash that is tossed into planters and around campus is not healthy for the environment and makes our campus look litter-ally trashy. Garbage cans are located all across the campus and are very accessible there is no excuse for not being able to find a trash bin. Yes it may be slightly more difficult to walk all the way over to a bin, but stop being lazy and save the ecosystem.  Even going out of your way to toss a neglected empty water bottle is like saving part of the world. Every little action has a chain reaction so make even the small ones good actions.