FARMINGTON – Pride and putridness have prompted two Mt. Blue High School sophomores to organize volunteers to clean up the girls locker room.
“We came in one morning and we were just disgusted,” Michelle Oswald said of herself and Brooke Taylor. “We went in and were like, Eew, this is so gross,'” she added.
With rust and calcium deposits in the showers, leaks in the ceiling, graffiti and nail polish fighting with peeling paint for wall space, and a stench permeating the room, Michelle said, students no longer feel comfortable using the room, and visiting teams “think we have no respect for anything.”
“No one can enjoy that; they don’t feel comfortable” using the locker room, Michelle said. “You should feel comfortable at the school, because we spend a lot of time there.”
The two school athletes, who use the room regularly, recently got permission to organize a volunteer effort to refurbish it, Principal Joe Moore said.
Moore expressed his approval of the girls’ plans saying that, “It’s one of those things in a tight budget year that just wasn’t put into the budget. So they took it upon themselves to go ahead and do some fund-raising … and I’m proud of their efforts.”
Work will begin during Thanksgiving break, “every day but Thanksgiving,” Michelle said. Volunteers plan to thoroughly clean and paint the walls, floor and ceiling, as well as refinish graffiti-covered benches and hang new mirrors above the sinks.
Michelle and Brooke are currently soliciting donations for money and materials they will need, including a few mirrors.
“We’re girls; we need mirrors in our locker room,” she said, adding that the ones they have are covered with nail polish.
So far, approximately 30 other students have signed on to help with the effort, Michelle said. Most of them are sophomore girls who use the locker room. Others include teachers.
Michelle said she and Brooke were pleasantly surprised with the reception their plan has received so far from other students. “We came up with the idea, and it’s just fun to see people come up and ask to join,” she said.
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