Lead by plant operator Keith Wakefield, he describes his team as "elite."
By Dyuce Woodson
January 18, 2023— Every Wednesday morning, Dunn Elementary School plant operator Keith Wakefield gets some help from some students to tidy up the school grounds.
"I tell them, you're, like, on an elite team," Wakefield says. "It's not like everyone is on this team."
The Green Team is that elite team.
For a little less than 30 minutes, once a week, six students go around and help beautfiy their school.
"I actually really love nature and I know how much the environment needs to be cleaned up," Nathan said.
So they clean in the most helpful ways possible.
"Helping picking up trash, leaves, giant branches and sticks and stuff," Aubrey said.
Not only do they get to be outside during this time, the kids also have a great sense of pride.
"Well, you just feel good!" Aubrey said.
One student is most proud seeing the final result.
"I get to walk into school every day and see how fresh the school looks," Aiden said.
The Green Team was created earlier this school year and Wakefield was the one who was put in charge of it.
He says, while the Green Team is still pretty green with experience, he notices some sprouts of positiviely starting to take root.
"I think the word, it's like, compassion -- if you will," Wakefield said. "It's more like, they show they're caring and not only do they show it in, like, the things that they do, but they show it towards each other."
While growing compassion is one aspect of the team, another is the budding habit of keeping your community clean, which helps everyone.
"I would think, if we could get it to that point, then we would have a pretty good, clean school," Wakefield said.