Mullan students clean the town for Earth Day tradition

MULLAN— “After a long winter, it’s nice to have a town that’s been dusted off with a good spring cleaning,” Mullan Jr./Sr. High School Principal and Teacher Jackie Almquist said after students spent time cleaning and preening the quaint town they spent most of their time in the last week. This tradition has gone on for about three decades and continues to be an essential aspect of the school.

A neighborhood clean-up can instill a sense of pride in students, give everyone a chance to contribute, improve the community’s self-image, and improve overall neighborhood health.

Almquist led the students in the school-wide neighborhood clean-up, including all students from Kindergarten to their Senior year.

“The elementary students picked up garbage like cans and paper,” Almquist explained,

“While the junior high school students swept sidewalks and gutters, replanted flowers at the John Mullan statue, cleaned the gravel from the town basketball court, repainted the tiger paws from the pavilion to the football field, and cleaned up the town park and Rails to Trail parking area.”

The first Mullan student town clean-up started in 1974 around the first Earth Day. Earth Day was first observed on April 22, 1970, when an estimated 20 million people nationwide attended events at tens of thousands of sites, including elementary and secondary schools.

“I’m not sure if it’s been done every year since that, but one of my teachers says it’s been over thirty years.”

Almquist added that this is important to her and the school as it allows students to volunteer and gives back to the community.

“After a long winter, it’s nice to have a town that’s been dusted off with a good spring cleaning.The students understand it’s a way to say thank you to the town, and they really take pride in doing a good job. Afterwards, the junior and high school students had hot dogs for lunch, and then had a free swim at the pavilion as a reward for their hard work.”