Junction City celebrated Earth day on April, 25, 2015 as the community came together to clean around the city. The annual clean sweep started around 8am to noon, as volunteers picked up trash and recyclable items. The wet and muddy 55 degree weather didn’t stop the community from cleaning up, there were three different groups of volunteers that cleaned up different parts of Junction City.

“The Junction City Clean up has occurred for a couple of years and [National Honor Society] has participated in them for the last three or four years” Said Lisa Torres-Wigton, the National Honor Society Advisor.

National Honor Society (NHS) is a organization in the school that invites well-rounded students in the high school and requires them to participate in at least one service project a year. In this Spring semester, NHS will be involved with the community by “cleaning up garbage from city properties to aid in the over-all aesthetics of our community” Said Torres-Wigton.

Many NHS members volunteers for their service learning hours for the organization. Although the weather wasn’t that great, everyone still had fun.

“It’s fun and it makes me feel good” Kaiser Kim, Junior

“It’s really a great thing that we’re working together. All of us together makes it more interesting.” Elizabeth Cortes, Senior.

Earth Day in Junction City was a great way to give back to the community as well as expose volunteers the importance of throwing away their trash.

“It felt great to give back to the community” Samantha Judd, Junior.

“Everyone should be required to do this once in their lifetime, it should be like Jury Duty, but clean up duty.” Christina Brunton, Senior

“It felt good to give back to the planet” Nathan Lechancock “I don’t understand why people would throw away trash when there’s trash cans”

Students from Youth Court also participated in Earth Day. Youth Court is a community based and anybody that is a youth can join. They give service hours and it helps open up opportunities to learn about the law system and how a real court works. They participate in community activities such as Earth Day, however mainly focus on the court.

“It’s a community service project we do every year. All of the youth court members are volunteers.” Said Courtney Parker, Youth Court Adviser

They have participated in Earth Day annually and also helped with the clean up.

“It was really fun. We made a game out of everything and it motivated us.” Katelin Darbonne, Freshman

“I just think most kids wouldn’t like this stuff, but I like to clean and I look forward to these events.” Ann Kim, Freshman.

The National Earth day is April 22nd, but every day can be a day to help the earth and throw away your trash.

But there’s always more to clean! On May 16th, National Honor Society will clean up around the stadium one last time before the school year ends.