900 Volunteers Help Villa Park Clean Up Its Act

A face lift for Villa Park High School was the idea behind the first-ever Dustbuster Day on Saturday, April 17. Hundreds of students, parents, teachers, administrators and staff were already lining up at 8 a.m. to sign in at the spring cleaning, the brainchild of Norma Hockensmith, student body vice president.

Nine hundred workers, at least 700 of them students, showed up to get the campus in shape and to take home some gift certificates for their labors.

“Everybody took on a responsibility that they normally wouldn’t have,” said Brent Reeves, commissioner of school improvement. “There is no reason for us to stand idly by and watch our campus crumble into ruins.”

Reeves had conducted a schoolwide survey to determine what students wanted done to improve the facilities. New landscaping and clean restrooms ranked at the top in the survey.

For the cleanup, the school was divided into 14 zones, each with a leader. Decked out with red baseball caps and matching red T-shirts, the zone leaders supervised the projects, which included sweeping asphalt, painting classrooms, dusting shelves, washing windows, scrubbing walls and planting trees.

At least one discovery was made during the project. While sorting through the stage and prop room, members of the Drama Club found a long-abandoned restroom.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said sophomore Sarah Yi, who made the find along with junior Michell Sipl. “There was a working toilet, sink and everything.”

The biggest cleaning chore required two days’ work. Seniors Darice Liu and Nicole Trollinger were in charge of retouching the huge Spartan logo on the amphitheater wall, but the project proved to be so vast that they returned Sunday to finish.

English teacher Dom Corradino, who claims, “I live in my classroom,” brought some extra helpers for his classroom cleanup. “My wife, my two sons and I cleaned the room, finished painting and hung artwork,” he said. “We made it a home.”

Organizers of the event admitted that more than just a clean campus motivated the 700 students to participate. Those who worked for at least five hours were awarded a free Disneyland ticket, an Angels game ticket, Jack in the Box gift certificates and Kodak film coupons, all of which were donated to the school.

Several members of the Villa Park community donated cash totaling $3,000 toward the event, and local companies also donated products and services.

The school hopes to make Dustbuster Day an annual event. “We’ve learned that sometimes (students) need to do things for ourselves,” Reeves said.

ANGELA MARTIN

and KARA O’BRIEN,

VILLA PARK HIGH SCHOOL

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“It’s bad luck to look behind the refrigerator because it means you’ll clean there.”

--Anne Herbert