COMMUNITY BUILDING

Pioneer Elementary School - Helping Others Pursue Excellence (HOPE) Continues

Students enjoyed sunny weather and the beautiful flowers they planted as part of Pioneer's Helping Others Pursue Excellence project.

Evergreen High School (EHS) CTE - Home Depot

Students in the Evergreen High School CTE program, teamed up with employees from Home Depot to work on two special homegrown projects.  Under the expert guidance of Home Depot employees, who graciously volunteered their time, students worked in EHS's Skilled Trades Center to build wedges for the school's weight-room and up ramps for the track and field team.  These are precision products that have to be built to be load-bearing for athletes and usually cost hundreds of dollars if purchased from an outside source.  The Home Depot Foundation covered the costs of the materials and helped organize the event.  Thank you, Home Depot.  Thank you also to the Columbian Newspaper for its story by Becca Robbins and photos by Amanda Cowan. 

Orchards Elementary School - Wall Mural

Congratulations, Orchards Elementary School All Stars, on your hard work and creativity developing a beautiful and inspiring mural for your school.  Thank you to Evergreen Public School's Maintenance department for navigating the challenging installation task.  Throughout the months of January and February, Enspire Arts has provided a unique and creative offering for Orchards Elementary with the arts in residence program:  We Shine Brighter Together.  Enspire Arts founder and teaching artist, Sarah Lightfoot, provided expressive arts learning opportunities for all K-5 students with the aim to encourage a feeling of safety and belonging.  The arts are powerful tools to connect with ourselves and others.  Using elements of music, mime, rhythm, and song, students explored opportunities to express their individual voice and appreciate the voice of others.  Students created and designed their own unique star to represent personal positive character traits that help them shine bright in the world.  The culmination of this project is a beautiful permanent mural designed by artist Elle Benage of Enliven Murals.  Elle's stunning artwork is a wonderful capstone of the project, tying in the themes of safety and belonging by incorporating all 400+ stars into the mural.  It's a true collaboration of heart and soul.  Each individual star is beautiful on its own but together they are an inspiring representation of our collective strength and the comfort of community and belonging.  We're grateful to Orchards for this opportunity to work with their students and hope that the mural will remain as a symbol of belonging for years to come.

RECOGNITION

Heritage High School - DECA Chapter

Congratulations to the Heritage High School DECA chapter.  They competed at the State Career and Development conference February 29-March 2, 2024 in Bellevue WA.  Lexi Vo: Emerging Leader Scholarship as well as State Area 9 member of the Year moving on to Internationals DECA conference.  Lilianna Whitmore and Keyrie Olvera: placed 7th for School Based Enterprise and moving on to the Internationals DECA conference.  Anna Le and Heritage DECA Chapter created a campaign of community service, alumni interviews and promotions and received the THRIVE Award and moving on to the Internationals DECA conference.  Heritage took 15 students and all of them presented above expectations and represented Heritage and the Evergreen School District well.  Advisors Erica Johnson and Shawn Perez.