Staying in tune: Altoona Area High School students tidy up the community

Nearly 250 Altoona Area High School students and 39 teachers participated in the 12th annual “Toona Tune-up,” a community service initiative held Tuesday to beautify the city’s neighborhoods and parks.

For five hours, the volunteers painted, pulled weeds, spread mulch and picked up trash at 17 locations throughout the city, all in the spirit of giving back to the community and making Altoona a cleaner place to live.

Retired teacher Robin Deshong started the initiative in 2013 as a way to keep students productive during their final week of school. This year, teacher Samantha Knepp coordinated the effort with the Central Blair Recreation Commission to ensure the tradition lives on for years to come.

Although she’s no longer involved with the project, Deshong drove around to each of the locations to thank this year’s team leaders and volunteers for their work.

“It’s nice to be able to go around and just say ‘Thank you’ to all of them for their help over the years,” Deshong said. “It’s nice to see the tradition continue.”

Knepp said there are many life lessons to be learned from cleaning up the community.

“That’s a big point of the entire project is to get kids to have this sort of sense of pride in their community,” Knepp said.

Megan Kutruff said this was her second year participating in the festivities as a teacher. She also volunteered for the Toona Tune-up years ago as a student at Altoona High, she said, adding she’s passionate about the initiative and looks forward to it each year.

“I think it’s important to get around the city to help clean up this beautiful town that we all live in and make it nice for our youth,” Kutruff said.

At Garden Heights Park along Lowell Avenue, senior Aleksander Swalga broke a sweat shoveling mulch into a wheelbarrow and buckets so other students, like seniors Braydon Hetrick and Landon Vaughn, could spread it throughout the park.

Swalga said the community service was rewarding to him and his peers.

“It’s hard work, but after all of that hard work, it feels really nice to look at what you’ve done and see all the progress – especially with what we’re working with,” Swalga said.

On another side of the park, junior Maya Quirin and seniors Joslyn Kuhn and Carmelle Arias were hard at work pulling weeds from the park’s fence line.

“I enjoy cleaning up the park. It keeps Altoona clean,” Quirin said.

Kuhn said her mother enjoys pulling weeds, so she signed up to enjoy a relaxing day outside to do the same.

Arias said she had a lot of fun participating in the Toona Tune-up with her friends.

“I think this is a great experience because I used to do this back in the Philippines and it’s fun,” Arias said.

At Prospect Park, juniors Zach Kerin, Storm Savoy and Dylan Hicks raked mulch and cleaned up trash around the baseball field along with a group of other students.

Although he’s “a little bit” sad that the school year comes to an end for students on Friday, Kerin said he’s excited for the football season to start soon. He and Savoy play football for the district together, Kerin said, adding the cleanup was a great experience.

“You get to help the community and it’s a fun time,” Kerin said. “You get out of school and you get pizza, so that’s what I’m excited about.”

Hicks said he enjoys visiting Memorial Park throughout the summer and feels a sense of pride keeping the area clean.

“People leave balls and stuff and we clean up around there, too, in our free time,” Hicks said.

Seniors Micah Nedimyer and Jayden Barnhill said they also enjoyed serving the community with their cleanup efforts. The two were seen raking mulch together at Prospect Park on Tuesday.

Misty Finnegan, a family and consumer science teacher who was at Prospect Park with the students, said she talks with her students about the importance of community service in class.

“It gives them a sense of community pride and this gets them the hands-on experience of doing that and giving to their communities,” Finnegan said, adding she spoke with representatives of the Central Blair Recreation Commission, who expressed gratitude for the district’s volunteer efforts.

The Toona Tune-up saves the commission “hours of work” and is something that many junior students look forward to volunteering for again in their senior year, Finnegan said.

That was the case for senior Colby Wendle, who was pulling out weeds and adding mulch to the ground nearby the Altoona Railroaders Memorial Museum’s walkway.

As a junior last year, Wendle spent his day at Veterans Memorial Field along Maple Avenue making the ballpark look nice, he said.

“For me, it really does mean giving back to the community,” Wendle said of his volunteer service, adding he takes pride in making his city look nice. “I just like being here with everyone because it’s a really nice (community) to be a part of.”

Mirror Staff Writer Matt Churella is at 814-946-7520.