A “Super” Saturday

Cameron Ross isn’t even a first-grader yet, but he trod along Central Valley Road with secondary school students Saturday, picking up trash.

Clad in the littlest yellow CK Super Saturday shirt, 5-year-old Cameron volunteered at the traditional event which is twice as old as him.

“I wanted to establish for him that big kids aren’t scary,” said Cameron’s dad, Wallace Ross.

Ross, a Fairview Junior High School teacher and Associated Student Body adviser, was participating for his second year. There were 90 Fairview students, he said, cleaning up roadsides and washing cars for free.

“The neighborhoods can see kids who go to those schools doing (good things),” Ross said.

Fairview’s 90 were part of a nearly 700-strong volunteer force from all of Central Kitsap’s secondary schools.

The weirdest, or grossest, thing that Cameron picked up on the Central Valley Road stretch between Fairview and Waaga Way, were some used diapers. Elsewhere around CK, yellow T-shirt crews picked up an oven, a mattress, a toilet, a desk, hubcaps and enough smaller items to overflow a 30-yard trash container, said Blanche Saladino, Olympic High School counselor and CK student senate adviser.

For the 10th anniversary of CK Super Saturday, the student senate took over planning of the event, which started out as a huge car wash and was put on by random student volunteers.

Eventually it evolved into a massive, district-wide event where students pick up roadside trash at 17 locations, run six car washes, and finish off with a celebration at Silverdale Waterfront Park.

Car washes started at 10 a.m. and ran for two-and-a-half hours. Roadside clean-up began at 11.

By 1 p.m., East Bremerton Rotary, Central Kitsap Kiwanis and CK school board members were cooking up hot dogs at the covered picnic area of the park.

Comedian Cris Larsen, an East Bremerton Rotary member, has been involved with CK Super Saturdays since the very first one. The original was put on as a thank you to voters for their levy support. Now the volunteer spree serves another important purpose as well — demonstrating a positive effort by local youth.

“If the kids can get out in the community and clean up, it’s good for all of us,” Larsen said.

A 1981 Olympic High School alumnus, Larsen comes back every year to help area junior high and high school students complete their CK Super Saturday tasks.

“We call ourselves a group of men with trucks,” he said.

East Bremerton Rotary members pitch in to buy the hot dogs. On the day of the clean-up they drive around and pick up the odd items and bags of garbage students lug out of ditches and bushes.

“Each year it gets bigger and bigger,” Larsen said about the event. “And we get it done quicker because more kids participate.”

With a growing volunteer base, the student senate proved to be an organizational strength. Because the group meets from the beginning of the school year and encompasses representatives from all secondary schools, its organizational efforts were well coordinated and timely.

OHS senior Barbie Morris, chairperson of the student senate, washed cars during the last three Super Saturdays. It was fun to go behind the scenes for a change and network with local businesses and organizations, she said.

“One of my personal goals,” Morris said, “was to show the community that there’s actually teenagers out there ... doing something and there’s hope for the youth, not to worry as much.”

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