The Culver Citizen

By Kelly Masson
Citizen Editor

CULVER - Volunteer crews from not only The Culver Academies, but also other civic organizations such as Culver Kiwanis Club and Union Township Junior Livewires 4-H Club, spent their Sunday afternoon cleaning up.

As part of a National Youth Service Day project headed by Anne Kelley '94 and Megan Millard '07 from the Academies, volunteers split into to two groups to clean up the Culver Town Park and the Twin Lakes Camp for Disabled Children.

The project was expanded this year and the response was the same, if not bigger, than last year's, according to Millard.

“I'm glad we had a large turnout. It is good to reach out a little farther than Culver. [The camp] will be a better place for the kids in the summer,” said Millard. “Everyone was really excited about National Youth Service Day this year.”

Kelley worked with Pete Rekitzke, camp director, to coordinate the camp clean up.

“[Rekitzke] has some long-term goals for the camp,” said Kelley. “We would like to come back if they will have us.”

At the camp, crews painted hand rails and playground equipment, did some landscaping, built a place for a vegetable garden, cleared a path to the pump houses for paving this summer, cleared a foundation from an old building and dug holes for a new entryway foundation. Crews were made up of various Academies teams, such as tennis, lacrosse and softball, as well as civic groups.

“The Culver cadets were a good bunch and they worked really hard. I was very pleased with the results,” said Retitzke. “I was pleasantly surprised at the organization and the execution between Anne Kelley and Jim Weirick [from Culver Kiwanis Club]. They had all of the bases covered.”

Retitzke said they split into several task-oriented groups and were very good about completing their tasks.

“I would definitely like them to repeat the event and maybe make it an annual one,” he said. “I would also like to have some of the kids that showed interest, come and work at the camp during the camp season. All in all it was a very good experience. And a heartfelt thank you goes out to them.”

“Kids who are committed came and they are willing to work so hard,” said Kelley.

Because of conflicts in scheduling this year, Culver Community High School students were unable to volunteer. Millard and Kelley plan to better work around scheduling conflicts next year.

Crews at Culver Town Park with the help of park officials Kelly Young and Leon Bennett cleaned up the beach, playgrounds, the volleyball court and landscaping.