FHS students’ legacy project honors custodians
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Farragut High National Honor Society members Jack Egner, left, and Sreevathsa Malluri removed the old wood shelving and units from the custodian’s closets. - Photo submitted
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Groups of Farragut High National Honor Society members worked in groups to assemble shelving units, for the custodian closets at the school. - Photo submitted
Farragut High School National Honor Society seniors left a legacy a future class can continue.
Before the school year ended, they cleaned and updated the school’s custodian closets and provided much needed chairs and a lunch table as part of their Custodian Appreciation Project.
“Every year, the National Honor Society board and students create what we call a legacy project, something they can leave to the school in their name,” said Allison Maldonado, faculty advisor for the society. “Last year, we built picnic tables for students to use outside.”
This year, “we had one Sunday we spent five hours demolishing and cleaning out the closets,” she said.
“But we didn’t get the shelving units in time, so we couldn’t take out the old shelving units on that day,” she said. “So, we had another day where I divided people up into teams. We had four teams.
“While one team was demolishing, taking down all the wooden shelving units, other teams were putting together the new shelving units,” Maldonado said. “Everyone was sweating. It was really hard work.”
The school has four custodian closets in the main building and a custodian workroom. The CTE building has its own closet and the gymnasium and auditorium building have their own closets as well.
“The first day we had 30, and the second day we had 45 kids there,” Maldonado said. “It was just everybody pitching in. It was just a very cool project.”
Besides the closet clean-ups, students continued to the workroom, replaced the chairs for the custodians.
Students ended their work in May, but there is still work to be done, she said.
“A portion of next year will also be the custodian project to get it all done,” Maldonado said. “Our president, Albert Liu, actually came up with the idea.
Liu served on Farragut Municipal Planning Commission and as a Knox County School Board youth representative.
“Every year, [the National Honor Society and Spanish Honor Society] buy gift cards for the custodian and cafeteria staff for Christmas, and Albert said, ‘Hey, what if we do something for the custodians?’ We said, ‘Yeah, let’s do that.’
“We’re working on getting them a new lunch table,” Maldonado said. “The chairs came in … they’re massage chairs, not super fancy, but they’re comfortable.
“We just wanted to show appreciation to the people who are behind the workings of the school,” she added.
