Students from the Devils Lake High School volunteered Wednesday, March 27 at the Devils Lake Journal spending their “Firebird Time” bringing boxes of records and receipts from the basement to the back room and garage of the building at 516 4th Street NE.
Four different groups of students each spent approximately 30 to 40 minutes shifting the boxes that had been accumulating for decades. Teams of students brought the boxes out of three large storage rooms to another team waiting at the bottom of the stairs, then a team forming a chain of students moved the boxes up to the main floor where a team of workers placed each box, some heavier than others, on a trolley to be moved to the building’s garage area. There they met the final team of students who placed the boxes in rows in the garage.
Now Journal workers can more easily go through what’s in each box. Like most businesses, certain records must be kept for a certain length of time, but what has exceeded the required time can be shredded and discarded. However, the Journal staff has to make sure that items like three-ring binders and large paper clips are removed, so they don’t damage the equipment of the company that is doing the shredding sometime in May.
Tammy Meyer, Instructional Coach at DLPS and Student Council Advisor, accompanied each of the four groups that helped at the Journal. She said this kind of volunteer experience is just right for the students as they “Live to Give” – a slogan the students echoed as they worked and were later rewarded with small bottles of water and a cookie before returning to the school.
Special thanks goes to Meyer, Mrs. Newgard’s and Mr. Kukert’s classes and all the students who helped out. The cookies were supplied by Devils Lake Doughnuts and Gate City Bank donated a sleeve of napkins for the students’ treats after their work. Thanks to them, as well.
