Geneva D-304 gives 2nd Viking Leaders Award to Heartland students for Adopt-A-Highway program

GENEVA – If you find a dead animal, don’t touch it.

That was one of the safety rules the Student Council at Heartland Elementary School learned about cleaning up the roadway in the Kane County Adopt-A-Highway program.

So said Alina Zadro, who was among nine students who received the Viking Leaders Award at a recent Geneva School District 304 board meeting. Two other students who received the award were not at the meeting.

“We learned about what to wear and to be safe ... what we could touch and not touch,” Alina said. “Some of the things we were not allowed to touch were cigarettes or any broken glass, nails or any dead animals.”

Student Kendall Harbach said they found odd things as they worked on a half-mile stretch near the intersection of Fisher and Keslinger roads.

“The most odd thing we found was a traffic cone,” Kendall said. “We found a giant rod of wood like 5-feet tall like a sign post or something. An election sign. Lots of plastic water bottles, soda cans, glass bottles, lots of candy wrappers and wrappers in general.”

Maggie Helland and Sophia Behrens explained how they wore yellow safety vests, gloves and long pants.

“It is important to know that when you adopt a highway, you have to look everywhere,” Sophia said. “Because we found trash in some pretty weird places.”

Maggie said they needed to be at least 10 years old to participate and an adult needed to be present for five of them.

“Cleanup takes place after sunrise and before sunset,” Maggie said.

Because that stretch of highway is close to their school, the students walked there and parents met them at the Chapelstreet Church when they were finished.

Board member Jacqueline Forbes said she works for the Kane County Division of Transportation.

“That’s our highway that you adopted,” Forbes said. “I’m really excited that you did that because I don’t believe we’ve had a school adopt a highway. ... Thank you for doing that. It’s a big project.”

This is the second Viking Leaders Award the administration has given out.

“This is a new thing that we just started this year,” Superintendent Andy Barrett said.

“We’ve always honored here in the school district kids who have made some big achievement maybe in sports or in academics that’s called Tradition of Excellence,” Barrett said. “But we realized there are a lot of kids doing a lot of great things for their community and their schools. And we really wanted to honor and recognize them as well.”