Importance of local schools

To the Editor,

Due to a recent health issue with my husband and my continued care for my mother, Dave and I have had a challenge keeping up with our yard work. All was manageable until the leaves all fell into our yard after the first frost.

It was a huge comfort to be able to call on Nicole Abel’s Waitsburg FFA students to ask for help with leaf raking. In two visits, our front yard was leaf-free; the students had labored in true efficiency- my dad would have called it excellent workmanship.

This was a reminder of how important healthy, viable schools are to our community, and of the importance of supporting our schools and children when a vote for a school levy or bond is on the ballot.

Not only do we have the FFA students, but we also have school sports teams, school concerts, and music that entertain and inspire us.

Families are a critical part of economic health and vitality for Waitsburg; good schools are needed for new residents and business recruitment. Waitsburg has great schools, teachers, coaches, and administrators. We are truly fortunate in this small town; Waitsburg has big services.

Whether we have children in school or not, we know, not by a gene pool but by community, that these children belong to all of us. Please support our schools in every way possible. And thank a teacher!

Joy Marie Smith

Waitsburg, Wash.