An overwhelming turnout of students, parents and staff members gathered on Nov. 8 for Gunn Beautification Day (GBD), a three-hour event formally known as Gunn Pride Day sponsored by the Parent Teacher Student Association. Volunteers arrived at 9 a.m., fully expecting to complete their share of work while enjoying the tables of breakfast pastries, and later, pizza.

Parent coordinators Nancy Neff, Lori Shaffer and Andrea Ziebell all agreed that this year’s GBD was a success, thanks to the efficiency of the volunteers. “They were enthusiastic and came prepared to tackle difficult jobs,” Ziebell said. “They worked tirelessly for hours at dirty work like scraping gum off the pavement, and some kids wheeled big barrels of mulch across the campus.”

For GBD, the coordinators compiled a list of about 14 tasks, which needed a work force of about 75 students. Jobs included, but were not limited to, mulching, pruning, weeding, sweeping, picking up litter and planting. “[Our campus] is already pretty nice, but I think that we can always help out,” freshman Julia Ama said.

Neff, Shaffer and Ziebell first solicited the input of staff members and the presidents of the service clubs to see what kind of jobs they would like to see done. Most of the teacher-requested tasks were added to the “to-do” list and completed on GBD. According to Shaffer, Youth Community Service (YCS)/Interact senior club co-presidents Jillian Du and Vivian Shen responded to their request with an idea to paint the large square benches on the quad.

“[Neff] and I took the idea to [Principal Noreen Likins] and [Assistant Principal Tom Jacoubowsky],” Shaffer wrote in an e-mail message. “It turns out that there is a district policy regarding painting around campus. Regardless, the project would have been beyond the scope of a three-hour GBD.”

While most of the jobs stay the same from year to year, this year’s big project was planting and weeding on the hill by Arastradero Road. According to Neff, they wanted to tackle projects that would have a “visible” outcome, meaning that the difference would be noticeable. Physics teacher Bill Dunbar initially requested the committee to refresh the Arastradero hill because it was overgrown with weeds. Previous plants had not survived and students tend to tread on them when they’re dropped off. In compliance with Dunbar’s request, Neff and Shaffer worked in conjunction with some experts from the California Native Plant Society to select low maintenance and sustainable plants.

Every area of the campus received some amount of attention as students set about cleaning, from dusting keyboards in the Academic Center to washing the Fish Bowl. Almost every building on campus had its windows cleaned.

According to the coordinators, they started recruiting volunteers on Oct. 1. There were about 100 volunteers this year, almost double last year’s number. “Last year, a lot of the kids who signed up didn’t actually show up,” Ziebell said. “But this year, all the kids who signed up appeared to have followed through with their commitment, which is great.”

Shaffer, who was in charge of student recruitment, asked service clubs YCS/Interact, Key Club, Volunteer Club and the Environmental Club to help gather volunteers. She also attributed the increased attendance to the event created on the social networking site Facebook and the sign-up sheets in the Student Activities Center. “This is an important day for the students to take pride and become involved at a campus where they spend so much of their time at,” Ziebell said.

For junior Jake Cherry, GBD was more than just cleaning up the school’s campus. “It’s a good excuse to hang out with friends and I didn’t have anything better to do,” Cherry said.

The coordinators also got something in return from an event that mainly benefited the students. “[GBD] was such a success because we completed mostly all of the jobs,” Shaffer said. “And it was great working with all the kids who came out. We could have used more parent volunteers as team leaders as we had so many students coming out this year.”

The coordinators urge students to be constantly conscious of their campus and its state of cleanliness. “[GBD] is also a way to show the kids how important it is to keep their campus clean on a daily basis,” Ziebell said. “It’s not a once-a-year kind of thing.”