Eagle Scouts make a difference by building handwashing stations in public schools
Clean hands are important, as the COVID-19 pandemic so resolutely revealed. So to ensure students have ample opportunity to practice good hand hygiene at school, a troop of local Eagle Scouts engineered a device to streamline handwashing.
Built and donated to O.C. Johnson and Dorothy Hall elementary schools in August, two new handwashing stations were put to good use before Yuma School District One reverted to remote learning in November.
O.C. Johnson’s handwashing station has become a permanent fixture on its kindergarten wing.
When students were on campus for hybrid learning, kindergarteners and first-graders walked a thin blue line that guided their path to class, lunch and recess, intersecting with the handwashing station along the way.
“It’s been so helpful with everything that’s going on,” said O.C. Johnson Principal Angela Logan. “We’re never taking it out; we’re keeping it forever. It’s something we’ve talked about for years – trying to develop a better way (to promote frequent handwashing). Then when COVID hit, it was, ‘We’d better act and do something.’”
Before the station was installed, Logan said students were taking turns washing their hands in the restroom, which was time consuming and inefficient.
“Obviously, it’s easier to tell our older kids to go to the restroom and wash their hands,” Logan said. “With the little ones, to be able to get six to eight of them washing their hands at one time is more challenging. With the handwashing station, we know they’re doing it right, because we have adults watching them, and we know they’re doing it more often. Before they go to lunch (during in-person learning), they go to the handwashing station; when they come back from lunch, they go to the handwashing station; after recess, the handwashing station. It’s become part of their routine, which has helped a ton.”
At Dorothy Hall, a handwashing station greets students on their way inside from recess.
“It has really come in handy, because we have limited sinks,” said Dorothy Hall Principal LeeAnne Lagunas. “It was a really good Eagle Scout project – it was timely and appropriate and very, very beneficial for our students. We need all the handwashing we can get.”
According to Lagunas, encouraging frequent and thorough handwashing is part of Dorothy Hall’s mitigation plan for COVID-19, which teachers “have at the forefront” when students are on campus.
“It’s so helpful to have it out there as a quick reminder,” Lagunas said. “It makes it much more feasible when you have more access for more students to wash their hands at one time than having to wait one at a time, six feet apart.”
Just like at O.C. Johnson, even after COVID-19 and mitigation protocols are a distant memory, Dorothy Hall’s handwashing station won’t be going anywhere.
“Handwashing is something we’ve always done here,” Lagunas said. “At all of our schools,
handwashing is definitely part of our daily thing; it’s just hyper-focused right now. This will continue to be very useful for us.”
SCOUTS MAKING A DIFFERENCE
The idea for a handwashing station started with Logan, actually. Wanting to add a handwashing station to her school campus this year, she sought volunteers amongst her Facebook friends to help her build one.
That’s when Logan heard from her friend Jennifer Henderson and her son, Riley Henderson – a local Eagle Scout in need of a service project.
“I’m a public school teacher, and (Riley) had wanted to help a public school; that was one of his goals,” said Jennifer, a first teacher at Dorothy Hall. “So when this came up, he thought it was the perfect opportunity to help.”
Then a rising ninth-grader, Riley spent the better part of his summer vacation connecting the pieces of the project – obtaining a permit from the City of Yuma, talking with local plumbers and engineers, learning how to draw up a blueprint, garnering supplies like a 10inch PVC pipe and organizing his troop to help build the handwashing stations.
“What I wasn’t expecting was how much stuff we actually needed,” said Riley. “I thought we just needed a couple planks of wood, some PVC pipe and the water. But it was a lot more extensive than that, and the amount of engineering that had to go into it.”
After about a week of hard work – and outdoors in the summer heat, no less – the stations were complete and installed on their respective campuses. According to Logan, the donation was received with deepest gratitude.
“It was more than a weekend project, and I was just thrilled that they wanted to take it on,” Logan said. “I think it’s important to recognize Riley, being a young man stepping up to do a community service project. He led the whole thing. He held the meetings, he emailed me to organize when we would meet – he did it all, which was very impressive. It was nice to see a young man stepping up and really being responsible and taking pride in what he did.”
As for Riley, the project not only imparted valuable lessons on leadership; it also validated his belief that there’s no age requirement for making a difference.
“Public schools don’t get too much funding, so I really wanted to help public schools,” Riley said. “I just want to help out my troop and help out my community as a Scout in any way I can. This was the way I saw fit. You can do anything as long as you have the right tools. If you want to build a rocket, if you have the smarts you can do it, no matter what age. Nothing really has age limits.”