by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
Wielding her rake as she brushed fallen leaves onto a huge gray tarp, student volunteer Brooklyn Brigmon paused and smiled.
“Today, I’d rather be holding this rake than a pencil,” she said. “I like the physical activity of raking, and it’s fun to jump in the leaf piles.”
Brigmon was one of 60 Sauk Rapids Middle School eighth-graders whose astounding collective energy succeeded in raking leaves from a two-acre yard along the Northeast River Road in Watab Township. The raking job was one of the students’ yearly community-service projects.
And, like Brigmon, all of the students made the vigorous raking job lots of fun. Throughout the vast yard, students jumped, leaped and dove into the huge piles of leaves, squirming, whooping, jumping together and on top of one another in wriggling, giggling heaps. Other students – groups of rakers – took quick breaks by plopping down onto the fat leaf piles and throwing armloads of leaves into the air.
Throughout the yard could be heard a loud swoosh-swoosh-swoosh of the rakes connecting with dead leaves, and the air instantly turned redolent with the sweet, melancholy smell of late autumn.
The frenetic activity seemed at times like that of ants scurrying to build a sand ant hill. After filling the long, wide tarps with leaves, teams of students dragged the tarps across the lawn to nearby woods where, in a clearing, they emptied the tarps onto an ever-growing huge pile of leaves.
The collective raking took place Oct. 28 at the home of 87-year-old Audrey Philippi, a widow who lost her husband, Florian, years ago. The Philippis first moved into that house on that huge lot in 1959. It’s right across the river-drive road from the Mississippi about midway between Sartell and Rice.
At 12:30 p.m., two school buses stopped on the river road. Students carrying rakes like battle forks swarmed off the buses and immediately attacked the vast expanse of lawn, raking furiously and happily in groups. It was like seeing an explosion of positive energy. They raked continuously for two hours. A couple of adult chaperones used leaf blowers to blow the leaves from corners and around the house.
“They’ve done this for me for four or five years,” said Audrey Philippi, standing in her driveway and watching the swirl of rakers. “I’m so grateful. They do such a good job – a very good job.”
School staff, including Cindy Hideman, media specialist; Amy Stedje, eighth-grade math teacher; and Brian Kothman, father of one of the students, Bradley Kothman, accompanied the students. The staff, wielding rakes, worked right along with the students.
When asked what they like about doing the leaf-raking project, this is a sampling of what the students answered:
Nick Maxwell: “I just like to help.”
Jaden Johnson: “It’s fun!”
Shelby Strassburg: “Because I love jumping in leaves.”
Matthew Trapp: “To get out of school and have fun in the fall leaves.”
Micaela Garcia-Walberg: “It’s better than sitting in school so long on a nice day.”
Brooklyn Brigmon: “Today, I’d rather be holding this rake than a pencil.”
Not that Brigmon is a slouch in school; she gets mostly A’s on her report cards.
After the massive raking project, the students with their rakes ran back to the road as the two school buses returned. And off they went. Then silence settled onto the Philippi yard, its still-green grass showing brightly where so many dead leaves had been.
Sauk Rapids Middle School students take a leaf-flinging break from raking, one of their community-service projects they did Oct. 28 at the Audrey Philippi residence on River Road in Sauk Rapids. From left to right are eighth-graders Nick Maxwell, Brooklyn Brigmon, Jaden Johnson, Shelby Strassburg (toward front), Micaela Garcia-Walberg and Matthew Trapp.
Three Sauk Rapids Middle School eighth-graders lug two lackadaisical “lugs” back to the leaf-raking area after dropping off a leaf-filled tarp in the woods. The so-called lazy lugs, Caleb Neeser (in stocking hat) and Shjon Sertich were only pretending to be sluggish, which their luggers slyly understood – for awhile. From left to right are Brody Mages, Neeser, Sertich, Jaden Owings and Abbi Graves-Petron.
Xavier Mills, Sauk Rapids Middle School eighth-grader, hauls a hefty load of leaves to the compost heap in the woods of the Audrey Philippi residence of rural Sauk Rapids.
Volunteers empty their tarps full of leaves at a compost heap in the woods.
Carter Legatt holds a frog he found while raking leaves during one of the Sauk Rapids Middle School’s leaf-raking projects Oct. 28 at the Audrey Philippi residence on River Road in rural Sauk Rapids.
Leaf-pile divers Adan Lachmansingh (leg extended upward) and two other divers connect with a pile of leaves.
Carter Kayser, with a joyous yell, emerges from a pile of leaves to surprise his fellow leaf-rakers.
Volunteer students haul huge tarps filled with leaves across the lawn and into the woods of the Audrey Philippi home on the River Road in rural Sauk Rapids. The leaf-raking was one of the Sauk Rapids Middle School’s community-service projects.
Sauk Rapids Middle School students furiously attack leaves to quickly rake them into huge piles.
Fresh off the school bus and ready to rake – and have some fun – are Sauk Rapids Middle School eighth-graders (left to right) Braden Holt, Bradley Kothman and Jack Curtis. The three boys were members of a 60-student volunteer group that raked two acres of leaves at the home of Audrey Philippi of rural Sauk Rapids.
