LACEY – With their tournament canceled due to regional power outages, several members of River Ridge High School’s wrestling team gathered over the weekend for a different type of activity: removing branches and other storm debris for South Sound residents.
The teens and their coaches helped clean up yards and check on folks in the 405-home Capitol City Golf Club Estates, off Yelm Highway near Lacey.
“It’s awesome,” said resident Tim Podowicz, 49. “There’s a lot of work to be done.”
River Ridge head wrestling coach Mike Derda is president of the Capitol City Golf Club Estates Homeowner Association. He said many of his neighbors are retirees who were happy to have extra help with storm-related chores such as shoveling snow from sidewalks, picking up branches from yards, and cutting and stacking firewood from broken trees.
For Derda, who volunteered all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the work was about teaching the teens an important lesson.
“We’re a community,” he said. “We help each other out.”
River Ridge junior Zach Bonaudi, 16, said, “It feels good to make things neat. It’s actually pretty nice when things look organized and not destroyed.”
Freshman Jacob Zocco, 14, said he took part in the community service project to support the community, the wrestling team and his coach.
“It gave me something to do since the power was out at my house,” he added.
In the end, the team’s volunteer labor resulted in a donation from the Capitol City Golf Course, which helped make up for some of the revenue the team lost when Saturday’s tournament was canceled, Derda said.
But besides the donation, the project helped bring the team closer together, Derda said.
“Our thought is, we want to build character with the kids and give back to the community,” he said. “With the character, the wins will come.”
Lisa Pemberton: 360-754-5433 lpemberton@theolympian.com www.theolympian.com/edblog.
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