Zeal a Key Ingredient in Her Recipe for a Campus Cleanup

Don’t try to tell Juanita DeVaughn you are busy today.

Oh, you work Saturdays? Come after work. Baby-sitting? Bring the kids. Hurt your back? We’ll have you dishing up lunch for volunteers who are expected to show up today at John Muir High School in Pasadena for a campus cleanup DeVaughn has organized.

Truth is, the 70-year-old retired Muir teacher just won’t take a simple no.

DeVaughn, who taught home economics and history, has wheedled, nagged and cajoled local merchants and residents to donate roof shingles, lumber, paint and 25 pounds of nails.

“People give me money just to get rid of me,” the Altadena grandmother confides.

This summer, DeVaughn decided not to visit her niece, an opera singer living in Vienna, so she could stage the cleanup at Muir. She has made 30 calls on some days pleading for help. She has hit lumberyards and paint stores, the Kiwanis Club and six local churches.

Now she wants people’s time, a piece of their Saturday. She’s hoping for a turnout of 100.

DeVaughn believes that schools like Muir need their communities’ assistance. With more vigor than Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, she has orchestrated the first mega-cleanup of Muir, where the mushroom-beige buildings haven’t been painted in more than 12 years, a school where bathrooms are besmirched with graffiti.

On Friday, DeVaughn toured her target areas: the outdoor picnic tables, the women’s bathroom in Building D, the main entrance to Building A, the cheerleaders’ practice pad, the counseling center.

She has no shame. She corrals the janitorial staff members, wondering if they’d like to volunteer on their day off. She hugs students and, while she’s got them firmly in her arms, she pops the question: “So what are you doing Saturday, honey?”

*

Muir, set upon a sprawling 49-acre campus in the 1900 block of North Lincoln Avenue, has a proud past. Photographs of famous alumni dot the hallways. There’s John Van De Kamp and baseball great Jackie Robinson (class of 1936), as well as his brother Matthew (class of ‘35).

Athletic Director Janet Donelly unhesitatingly ticks off names of current sports stars who are former Muir students: Ricky Ervins, who plays for the San Francisco ‘49ers; Marcus Robertson, Houston Oilers; Chad Brown, Pittsburgh Steelers; Anthony Miller, Denver Broncos, and Stacy Augmon, Atlanta Hawks.

But the 1,500-student high school--like most--has also been afflicted with its share of violence, and a depressing physical deterioration. All of which, DeVaughn believes, is why steps must be taken. Now. Kids must know that parents care, that their community cares.

“How can you expect kids to do anything if they don’t think you care? We have to make things more conducive to good behavior,” DeVaughn says before fetching a load of doughnuts, hot links, rolls and charcoal for today’s cookout. “Maybe kids will take some pride if they see parents and teachers who care. We don’t want violence.”

Look at the classrooms, DeVaughn tells you. Paint curls off some walls in great waves. Buildings have had so much graffiti painted over that walls become a patchwork quilt of varying shades of beige. Graffiti have spread from walls to windows, steps and even the floors.

The bathrooms get hit worst of all, sighs janitor Delores Wells, pointing out that some of the graffiti are misspelled.

DeVaughn is unfazed. She’s ready to roll up her sleeves and start cleaning.

Wells laughs. When the janitor retires, she is going to really retire--not like DeVaughn, who can’t seem to stay away from Muir and attends every school basketball and football game.

Will Wells show up today? You bet. She’s hasn’t forgotten how DeVaughn used to bring her baked goods from her cooking classes. In fact, Wells intends to bring some macaroni and cheese to help feed other volunteers.

*

This spring, during a basketball game, DeVaughn got to talking with William Johnson, a Pasadena firefighter. Johnson’s daughter Kyla, who will be a senior at Muir this year, was in the game. Johnson’s two sons and his wife graduated from Muir.

He and DeVaughn shook their heads in agreement. Something had to be done.

“Look at schools in San Marino or South Pasadena and you’ll see it doesn’t have to be this bad,” Johnson says.

It didn’t take much urging to recruit Johnson. He hates the way the roof over the outdoor eating area has crumpled like a graham cracker. It galls him that the main entrance to the administrative offices looks, as he puts it, “like the back door to a movie theater.” When he gazes at the school buildings, he can’t help but want to paint every one--all of them, not just pieces here and there.

“We’re not going to change the world,” says Johnson, who plans to arrive at 7 a.m. today for the cleanup, which officially runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. “But we sure are going to make a start.”

DeVaughn nods emphatically.

“It takes all of us doing everything we can to make a school what we want it to be,” she says. But only moments later, her mind has jumped to the improbable.

“What if the volunteers don’t show up?” she asks rhetorically. “I’ll just be a nervous Nellie until I see them at school.”