Every morning the students of Arapahoe High School show up to a beautiful and primed school campus. For most of the year that is accomplished by the custodial team, but on Sunday, Aug. 23 close to 100 people from Mission Hills Church helped clean up the grounds at Arapahoe High School as a part of a community service event called Love in Action.

The volunteers participated in campus beautification including mulching, weeding, picking up trash, and removing pallets. “Usually we have one person outside doing all the work,” said Vice Principal Ceriani. “I feel like it is a great lesson for our kids, and it shows results that if you work hard you get results. It is a great lesson and one that we want our students to learn inside the building.”

The intentions of this event came from a different place than just beautification. The Love in Action director, Blake Burgett said, “A lot of people in our culture can be really suspicious of the church. We genuinely want to serve people and do it in a way that’s very loving.” Burgett noted that the goal is for kids at Arapahoe see the results of Love in Action and say “wow that’s great, they are not weird, they are not out to get us, they are just genuinely wanting to serve people.”

Love in Action provided volunteers from 70 years old down to as young as seven working side by side to serve their community. Principal Pramenko commented, “It is heartwarming. We have such an awesome community. This school is more than just a school for learning, it feels like a partnership. Giving back is a great message.”

As students walked onto their freshly cleaned campus Monday, Aug. 24, Pramenko hoped they saw, “It is love in action. It is putting your money where your mouth is when you say and do good things for others, and it is putting others first.” Pramenko quoted the school motto ‘Warriors always take care of one another,’ and said, “It’s people on their day of rest and time off voluntarily giving their time to help us and make our campus better.”