Teach One to Lead One students Saige Neblock, Shane Scott, Wyatt Marini, Logan Shorthill and Cooper Anderson (left to right) put together a new scooter rack for Daybreak Primary School.
When the Teach One to Lead One mentors challenged their Daybreak Middle School students to come up with a community service project, Shane Scott took the bull by the horns.
“The first thing I noticed about Shane is that he rides bulls,” said mentor Jack Head. “If you know anything about rodeo, it is tough. So right off, I figured there’s some mettle to this kid.”
Scott thought about the day he took his younger brother to the primary school next door and they saw scooters just laying around out in the open because there wasn’t any more room for them in the rack.
“Whoa! I had never seen so many scooters before,” Scott said. “I told my class about it and that we should build a new one and most of the kids voted for that.”
The first step for the class was to write letters to local hardware stores requesting supplies. Sherway Lumber in Battle Ground provided the students with wood and supplies. After a few more class periods to sand the wood and screw all the pieces together by hand, the boys presented their new scooter rack to Daybreak Primary School.
“I enjoyed talking to the people at the primary school and how much they appreciated it,” Scott said. “It looked pretty good at the end with the nice ‘Teach One to Lead One’ deal on it.”
The rest of the students who helped complete the project are Alexander Garriepy, Artem Tkachuk, Chris King, Cooper Anderson, Emmanuel Ktistakis, Jack Kittelson, Johnathan Bolin, Lars Kangas, Logan Shorthill, Max Garcia-Lopez, Oliver Cristaudo, Ruvin Suyarkov, Saige Neblock, Sean Cole, Thomas Anders and Wyatt Marini.
There are now 12 new slots for scooters. Before, students either left them outside when the rack was full or they brought their scooters to class. Teach One to Lead One communications specialist Teresa Lutz thanks Scott for taking the lead on this project and getting his classmates involved.
“One of the things we talked about this year is compassion; seeing a need and doing something about it,” Lutz said. “Right away, Shane came up with this idea and he got the rest of the boys excited about it. They all wanted to build the scooter rack.”
When the time came to bring the new rack over to the primary school. Scott was the one to present it to the staff.
“That really takes a lot to stand up in front of the school and present the scooter rack to them,” Lutz said.
“He was really passionate about it, too,” added Scott’s sixth-grade teacher Jamie Jefferies. “It meant a lot to him.”
Scott hopes he and his classmates learned the tools it takes to complete more service projects like this one in the future.
“If you see something that doesn’t look right, I would try to help out as much as I could to fix it,” he said.
Lutz suggests the first thing to do is ask for help.
“It takes a team. It takes a community,” she said. “Everybody came together during this project and did their part.”
“It’s not just one person, that’s for sure,” Scott added.
The 12-year-old wouldn’t be taking the bull by the horn without help from his father, Shaun Roggenkamp.
“He’s taught me so much. I started when I was seven,” Shane said. “You’re heart’s beating pretty fast. That’s why they say it’s the longest eight seconds of your life. It’s fun, too.”
