2020 Red Pride Service Day canceled

Red Pride Service Day has been a special tradition for Newton High and Berg Middle School students the first Wednesday of May for 10 years.

The 11th annual event was shaping up to be another great service day for the Newton students on May 6. Unfortunately, the current coronavirus pandemic has forced the first-ever cancellation of the event.

“It’s the first time we’ve had to cancel it. We did delay it by one week one year when it snowed on the first Wednesday of May,” Red Pride Service Day coordinator Alison Grier said. “I think the kids will be disappointed. It’s a tradition and is expected now.”

Grier, who teaches Spanish at NHS, handles the overall event and coordinates the high school students. Tyler Stewart, an eighth-grade American history teacher, coordinates the Berg Middle School students.

Students at Newton’s West Academy are also part of the brigade of secondary students working on Red Pride Service Day. Both Grier and Stewart agree Red Pride Service Day is ready for 2021. Preliminary plans were on the board for this year’s annual event and Grier said some of those projects can be carried forward for next year.

There are some projects done annually by the students such as wrangling all the trash around the Newton Interstate 80 exit for Iowa Speedway, helping with Project AWAKE, which manages the Newton Arboretum, cleaning trash up in three parks and painting murals around the city.

The students also plant flowers on the Newton city square each year. Grier said the Newton High FFA grows the flowers and plans to take over the planting. She said the FFA will plant the flowers downtown once it is safe to do so.

Red Pride Service Day was the vision of Grier. Along with Liz Dodd and Bruce Showalter, the group shaped the vision with the cooperation of school and city officials and community business leaders.

“At the beginning, it was an unknown entity but now the kids really look forward to it — getting their T-shirts and seeing what project their going to do,” Grier said. “You cannot go to a part of town and not see where Red Pride Day has touched it.”

Stewart said he has helped with the event since becoming the BMS student council sponsor and this would have been his fifth Red Pride Day. He said he arranges activities within walking distance of Berg.

“Alison does the majority of the work. She spearheads everything. On my end, I coordinate for the middle school, go to the meetings and she does a good job let me know which activities — setting activities aside for our middle schoolers,” Stewart said. “She usually arranges a few buses for us to be able to send a few classes different places.”

Red Pride Service Day is about having a sense of pride in the community though volunteer work. Between 800 to 1,000 students spend an afternoon each year giving back.

“It’s a really good day. Any day the students have a different learning experience instead of sitting in the classroom for 40 minutes is great,” Stewart said. “They get to learn something different, develop civic pride and being able to take care of the community and buildings plus create camaraderie with each other.”

Grier said the students pick up a lot of trash and get a lot of work done for the event’s community partners and without this year’s event it will be noticed. There were plans to do the labor to repaint the benches in Newton’s downtown area after Newton Main Street received a grant through the Paint Iowa Beautiful program.

“The students take pride in this day of work for their community and it is an event for all of our students, especially those not involved in other activities, to shine,” Grier said. “We’re disappointed this year but we’ll come back strong next year.”

Contact Jocelyn Sheets at 641-792-3121 ext. 6535 or jsheets@newtondailynews.com