More than 20 Hauraki Plains College students armed with cleaning materials will hit the streets this year to improve the community image.
The student volunteer army at the Ngātea college was recently rallied by year 13 student Danny Sayer, who told The Profile the idea came from a desire to give back.
“The school has given me so many opportunities and I just want to do something to give back to the community that’s given me all this,” he said.
“During the recent [cyclones] and seeing all the damage on Facebook made me think about what I could do to help people around the community.
“[I also] witnessed the Christchurch earthquakes, and that was originally where I saw the student army helping clean up the street.”
Danny said after piecing together his plan, he presented it to his fellow students at an assembly in the hopes of recruiting troops for his army.
“At the moment we’ve got about 20 kids [all year levels] and we’re hoping to bring in the whole year 13 cohort at one point because everyone needs 20 hours of community service to finish the year,” he said.
“[The school has been] quite accepting of it and really wants me to push forward with it and bring in a lot more students to help and bring in more community service to the school.”
Danny said the volunteers were deployed to Ngātea streets on March 6 for the first clean up session where they collected litter, cleared drains and berms and painted over graffiti.
“We’ll try to do it once a week or once every two weeks, because you’ve got to keep kids in school,” he said.
“We’ll try and do it in other areas as well around the Hauraki District… I’m planning to do some big events like beach cleanups.
“[We want to] make Ngātea and the wider Hauraki area a nicer place for everyone because with all the rubbish everywhere and the graffiti, it takes away the beauty of the area.”
