A day of play turned into a cleanup effort for two Iola youth.
Riley McGinnis, age 9, and Shakyia Trester, age 8, wanted to take advantage of Sunday morning’s nice weather and headed to a playground at the neighboring Jefferson Elementary School.
The girls saw trash on the former school grounds, so after breakfast they grabbed a couple of trash bags and some gloves and spent their morning clearing garbage from the site.
The trash included beer cans and vape cartridge boxes. It was an eye-opening experience for the girls and Riley’s mom, Jessica McGinnis, who is the Drug-Free Community Coordinator for Allen County Multi-Agency Team (ACMAT) and the Southeast Mental Health Center. She works with area high schoolers to conduct environmental scans to identify tobacco usage on public property where children are known to play, such as around Humboldt schools and the square, as well as the Iola Public Library.
Jefferson has been closed since a new Iola Elementary School opened in the fall of 2022, but is still used as a bus stop.
