Kids Make Good on Park Cleanup Vow

It was something of an urban Earth Day in Garden Grove on Thursday when 140 students gathered in Twin Lakes Freedom Park to fulfill a schoolwide pledge.

The students, from St. Paul’s Lutheran School, grabbed bright orange vests, rubber gloves and gardening tools, then spent most of the day planting, cleaning and grooming the 21-acre park on the city’s eastern edge.

The pledge to clean the park started as an Earth Day essay idea by seventh-grader Leia Lineberger, who spends much of her spare time playing, walking and feeding the ducks in the park. The cleanup idea grew from Leia’s own commitment to a volunteer effort by the entire private school.

“I wanted to really do something, not just write an essay,” Leia said.

School officials agreed that doing something was important in the student’s Earth Day pledges.

“We are putting what we are teaching into action. It’s easy to give money but not to get out here and actually do something,” said St. Paul’s education minister, Robert King.

Students arrived at the park just after 9 a.m., working through the early afternoon. City workers helped the older children plant six trees.

The park cleanup was organized through the city’s Adopt-A-Park program, which has connected volunteers with open spaces for about seven years.

Peggy Snyder, director of the program, said schools normally send out much smaller groups of student volunteers for cleanup missions. “It’s really unique that they could coordinate this big an effort,” she said.