Special to vIEWStudents and Pepsico volunteers at Ronnow Elementary School, 1100 Lena St., paint the exterior of the building on Nov. 13. Pepsico employees and students beautified several parts of the city.
Special to vIEWStudents and Pepsico volunteers at Ronnow Elementary School, 1100 Lena St., paint the exterior of the building on Nov. 13. Pepsico employees and students beautified several parts of the city.
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During a two-day company conference, Pepsico employees from around the country lent a helping hand to local schools.
On Nov. 13, 250 Pepsico employees got together with 250 students from around the valley to beautify sections of Las Vegas.
The event was put together by the city of Las Vegas Neighborhood Services and Keep America Beautiful, an organization committed to preserving the aesthetic appearance of communities, and supplies were donated from Lowe's and Sherwin-Williams.
"(Pepsico) thought it would be a great team-building experience," Tom Ethans, project leader for Keep America Beautiful, said. "It grew into this gigantic event."
During the day, the mixed group of adults and students painted fire hydrants and red-zone curbs in the downtown Charleston Heights community, murals on the school walls at Ronnow Elementary, 1100 Lena St., garbage cans at the Durango Hills YMCA, 3521 N. Durango Drive, and educational games like hopscotch and a map of the United States on the playground at Tobler Elementary, 6510 Buckskin Ave.
Fourth-graders Aja Green and Sydney Coleman from Tobler took part in the event, and both agreed they enjoyed their day of painting.
"After all those years of not having it colorful, it's good to have it colorful," Aja said. "It felt good to help paint the playground."
Sydney helped paint the four-square courts, and Aja painted the tetherball area and hopscotch.
"It was really fun painting the playground," Sydney said.
The new Rainbow Dreams Academy, to be located on the northwest corner of Lake Mead Blvd. and LaSalle Street, also received new trees and a dry river bed during the event.
"When the rest of the students came back to school, they were blown away," Ethans said. "It really made a huge difference to the kids."
In all, there were about 50 students and 50 adults at each site, including some Parent Teacher Association members from the schools.
Over at Ronnow, the school's art club students, made up of fifth-graders Joseph Ramirez, Jose Cervantes and fourth-grader Christian Mendoza, designed the murals that volunteers painted.
Desert Pines High School students also showed up to help paint the walls at the nearby elementary building.
"It was actually a day that we didn't have school because it was a professional development day for teachers," art teacher Marsha Bycraft said.
The kids showed up anyway, and painted dinosaurs, a ram, underwater creatures and a rainbow on Ronnow's walls.
"They had a lot of fun doing that, I think," Bycraft said. "It was all they were talking about for a really long time."
After the event, Pepsico donated $500 to the Ronnow art club.
"(The art) just makes the school a lot happier," Bycraft said. "Hopefully it's something that the community and kids can be proud of."
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