High school students spend weekends sprucing up Rio San Gabriel Elementary
DOWNEY — After two weekends of hard work, the playground at Rio San Gabriel Elementary School is a little brighter.
On Saturday, Nov. 2, the Downey High School KIWIN’S completed a large scale service project and repainted four handball courts and six murals. Led by Downey High KIWIN’S President Lesly Caceres, the students spent countless hours to complete their masterpiece on the school’s playground.
Lesly, a former student at Rio San Gabriel Elementary, rallied her whole club to give back to the school that helped her get to where she is today.
“As a former student of Rio San Gabriel Elementary School, I am grateful for all my teachers who gave to me so I wanted to give back and wanted to brighten up the playground with positive messages and colorful backgrounds so that students can always remember what it means to be a mustang and to show character,” Lesly said.
Diana Mae Baliscao, a senior at Downey High School, came up with the designs based on the ideals of Character Counts, then she brainstormed with students on new ideas to add.
She worked closely with the principal and staff at the elementary school to collaborate on the design.
Diana and her fellow KIWIN’S have worked on several murals at different elementary schools with the Compton Initiative, a non-profit organization who’s mission is to restore the City of Compton by painting homes, schools and churches.
“It’s not easy to direct my peers; they want to go fast and they want to paint more and more, and part of my role is to get them to slow down and to hone some of those meticulous painting skills and do crisp, solid lines, and by the end they will be pros and ready to work on another mural,” Diana said.
Jordan Guerrero, senior at Downey High School, organized the volunteers and made sure that all teams had the supplies they needed to complete the murals.
“It’s fun to see my fellow students be enthusiastic about leaving their mark in the community in a positive way,” he said. “It is a great opportunity to connect with them in a different way than in the classroom.”
Along with painting murals on the handball courts, students also helped clean up the campus and gave a staff meeting room a fresh coat of paint.
“We are so lucky to have had so much support from our community on this project and thankful for all of the encouragement we recieved from the principal, staff, and PTA,” said Tammy Abadd, junior at Downey High School.
Downey High KIWIN’S advisor Alex Gaytan said he was impressed with the students’ motivation and their desire to do all these projects in their free time.
Along with the students, Gaytan also volunteered his time and said the cost of having these murals painted by someone who would charge for it would have easily exceeded $3,000.
“The value of donating our time and talent far exceeds that amount, seeing the look on the faces of the students after they saw what they accomplished was priceless,” Gaytan said.
The Downey High School KIWIN’S would like to give a special thanks to the Downey Kiwanis Club for their sponsorship of this project, The Olive Resto Bar for their food donations, the Compton Initiative for loaning them tools and supplies, and DUSD School Board Member Giggy Perez Saab and Rio San Gabriel School Principal David Cid for their support and leadership.
The Downey High School KIWIN’S will be returning to Rio San Gabriel Elementary School to work on another service project to help the school on Saturday, Nov. 16, for Downey’s One Day of Service.