McLean Volunteers Recruited for Hardy "Beautification Day"

Volunteers from McLean Bible Church dutifully picked up trash, spruced up paint and did other chores at Hardy Middle School Saturday as part of the D.C. Public Schools' annual "Beautification Day" in preparation for the first day of school. They did a great job.

But despite the noble efforts of the McLean-based volunteers at Hardy led by D.C. fire fighter Justin FitzGerald, some residents wondered why so many suburban volunteers were recruited by DCPS (to Georgetown, of all places) when the city is spending billions in a massive upgrade of buildings, roofs, bathrooms, carpet, windows, floor coverings and athletic fields.

"Why would I sign up for this [clean-up] after paying sky high taxes?" asked one reader on neighborhood blog Prince of Petworth. "Why would I sign up for this after paying taxes to 'employ' kids to sit around (many in school buildings) for doing nothing? I’ve given out bookbags. I’ve cleaned up schools. On most occasions, the parents of the kids that attend the schools are never there. If they don’t care, why should I?"

To make matters worse, the city and Mayor Adrian Fenty have been criticized for paying students in a bungled summer jobs program that attracted vastly more students than there were slots, paid many to do little or nothing, and even included the shooting death of a participant.

In 2008, the program ran more than $30 million over budget for a cost of $55 million. This year, the council authorized $22.7 million, but the the program was oversubscribed and cost nearly $30 million.  The Council rejected Fenty's request to extend the program for a week by diverting $4.3 million from a program that provides housing for the homeless.

"Why don’t the summer youth employment kids have some sort of sweeps week to clean up the schools? I’d think they’d be much more respectful and protective of their school buildings if some of them actually had put in sweat equity on the premises," wrote another on PoP.