Cleaning Up The Desert:
A Win/Win for the city and the TPHS Track Team
January 29, 2011
By Cora Heiser
In an era of expected entitlements and “you owe me”, budget cuts may bring back the good ole American way of working for what you need and want. This morning the Twentynine Palms High School track team, under the direction of Head Coach Rhonda Morton, volunteers, and parents, picked up the trash left to rot in the open area north of El Paseo Apartments. The city will reward these students with a monetary reward based on how well the area was spruced up. The minimum amount earned today will be $300, according to Coach Morton.
Track events, soccer games, swim meets, and baseball games are non-gated, a fee is not charged to watch these events. These teams must do their own fundraising to provide items needed to participate in their athletic events. Coach Morton said that sport teams have to be creative and willing to work to raise enough money for uniforms and going to track invitationals. The money that is being raised today will go towards attending up coming invitationals. 28 boys and girls started conditioning in December and will have their first track meet, March 1st inLa Quinta. The shortest race is the 100 meter and the longest race is approximately 2 miles.
15 students showed up this morning to work. Some of the items that they found in the desert were toilets, couches, smashed TVs, and dining room chairs. One student told me that one area was set up as if someone had been using it to live there. When asked why people would dump their trash in the desert, a few reasons offered were that maybe the dump fees were too high and some people are lazy.
The city has two free dump days a year. Trash for Cash is offered on those days and many community organizations participate to not only clean the desert and their neighborhoods, but to also raise money for their organizations. It would be advantageous to both the city and our organizations to do this more than twice a year. It is a win/win situation for all.
Coach Morton may not be aware of it, but she is teaching these kids an important lesson, the lesson of going and working for what you need, instead of waiting for a hand out. I also want to thank the city for providing this opportunity to our youth.
About Cora Heiser
cora heiser has wrote 28 articles on this blog.
Twentynine Palms resident
29 Palms High School 72750 Wildcat Way Twentynine Palms, CA 92277
(760) 367-9591
Grades 9-12
Local Newspaper: Desert Trail Local Newspaper in 29 Palms, CA. Runs every Thursday and also a weekly online addition. During the track and field season we have a weekly article with highlights, results, and our Wildcats of the Week!
Russell Cup One of the longest running track and field meets in the state, the Russell Cup is a small schools meet that hosts schools with 1200 students or less. Located in Santa Barbara County, the meet is hosted by Carpinteria High School.
29 Palms Little League 29 Palms Little League site. Serving children ages 5-14 (teeball-juniors). Members of District 58 North.
TPHS Alumni Association Make sure to login to this website and stay updated on the Wildcat community, past, present, and future!
TPHS at alumniclass.com This is a DIFFERENT website from the other alumni site. Doesn't hurt to register for all of them (including myspace & classmates.com) because it's all FREE and SIMPLE!
