After hurricane Irma the JROTC students got together to help clean up two parks in the city of Lantana.

Our first stop was Bicentennial Park, which is right before the Lantana bridge. This park was covered with dead leaves, sticks, and litter. We spent almost two hours there trying to make it usable for the public. We took care of fallen tree limbs that were bigger than students and raked all of the leaves into piles and disposed of them. Santaluces teacher Ms. Kehlhofer and her son came out to help as well as many people there from other local schools.

Once we were done with Bicentennial Park we gathered back up and went to Maddock Park in front of Lantana Middle School. There were also many other people there helping to clean up. We went around and collected more large tree limbs that were cut down. We even had to carry a whole trunk of a palm tree that got completely destroyed and went around picking up litter with garbage bags.

“I think we did a good thing, my favorite part was picking up logs,” said Kelsey Smela a sophomore in JROTC that attended the park clean up.

Colonel Stone was there with us also helping to clean up the parks and the tasks were accomplished quickly because we all worked together as a team. By 11:30am we were done cleaning both of the parks.

“It felt awesome picking up branches and trash. It felt good to also help the community,” said William Saba a sophomore in JROTC.

We all went to this event to help the community. As a student who also attended this clean up, I can say that helping the community leaves you feeling good about yourself and your actions.

For more chief responses check out our story Chiefs Respond To Irma.