Hundreds of men show up for 2017 Hoover City Dad Brigade back-to-school cleanup
About 400 men and boys showed up Saturday for the 2017 Hoover City Dad Brigade back-to-school cleanup effort, organizer Derrick Murphy said.
About 200 men showed up at the Home Depot at the Riverchase Galleria for a kickoff breakfast and brief instructions at 6:45 a.m. before dispersing to the 16 school campuses that are part of Hoover City Schools. They were joined by just as many who met them at the various campuses.
The task of the day: help spruce up the schools in advance of the Aug. 9 opening of school. The men and boys painted classrooms and hallways, caulked seams, pressure-washed concrete, put together furniture and bookshelves, planted plants, picked weeds, picked up litter and spread out probably 3,000 bales of pine straw, among other tasks, Murphy said.
The first year, volunteers focused on Hoover’s elementary schools. Last year, they added the middle schools, and this year they expanded to cover the high schools as well.
School board members Deanna Bamman and Craig Kelley spoke at the kickoff breakfast and thanked the volunteers for giving of their time today.
Mirwais Iqbal, a parent of students at Spain Park High School and Shades Mountain Elementary, joined a crew of about 25 to 30 men and boys at Spain Park. Iqbal said he heard about the effort through the Birmingham Islamic Society and decided to chip in.
“I think it’s a great chance to help,” Iqbal said. “It’s our schools. They’re getting ready for the fall.”
The Spain Park team, which included numerous Spain Park football players, spent a lot of time spreading pine straw and sprucing up the landscaping around the school and in the parking lot, but they also picked up trash and sprayed weed and ant killer and did some pressure washing, said Fred Sibley, one of the team captains.
“The high school is kept up pretty well. We just want to touch it up,” Sibley said.
They especially wanted to make the landscaping at the football stadium look good because the stadium is getting new artificial turf and a new track installed, he said.
Sibley said he was glad to have a little bit of overcast sky to start the day and delay the heat a bit. He’s thankful for the volunteers that came out for the first year of the Dad Brigade at the high school level, but “with 1,600 students, we’d like to have all the parents here,” Sibley said. “We definitely would like to have 100 dads.”
About a dozen men and boys showed up at Hoover High, math teacher Martin Rushano said. They also spread pine straw, picked up weeds and garbage and painted a couple of classrooms.
Mike Dismukes, a Simmons Middle School parent, joined a crew at Simmons and said he just wanted to help out and be a part of the community. He brought his son, Dalton, who is going into the seventh grade at Simmons, with him.
Dalton said he just wanted to spend some time with his dad, and he takes pride in his school. “I like making it look good to people that drive by and new people that come,” he said.
A team of about 22 people showed up at Berry Middle School. The biggest job there was planting 16 hydrangea plants and adding pine straw at the west entrance of the school, filling in an area that typically gets very muddy when it rains, team leader Robin Schultz said.
Two members of that crew, including Hoover City Administrator Allan Rice, had to battle some yellow jackets in the courtyard, but team members said they were glad to find and hopefully kill the yellow jackets before the rest of the student body found them.
On the western side of Hoover, at Deer Valley Elementary, a team put out pine straw, pressure-washed concrete, cut down and hauled off some dead trees, cleaned up the rose garden, cleaned the exterior windows on the ground floor, painted the office and built a greenhouse.
One of the Deer Valley dads, Firat Soylu, just moved to Hoover from Tuscaloosa a couple of months ago and decided to pitch in. “I just wanted to help get prepared for school and also meet new people,” he said.
One of the volunteers at Trace Crossings Elementary, Paul Chin-Lai, had two children come through Trace Crossings years ago that have now graduated from Hoover High. He just wanted to give back to a school that had served his children years ago, he said.
Trace Crossings Principal Quincy Collins said it’s very rewarding to have people in the community like that.
“It’s been great — a great day to hang out with the dads and work together with them,” Collins said. “We all just kind of got our hands dirty and fellowshipped and talked about getting the school year started off.”
Murphy thanked all the businesses and organizations that donated materials and money to help make the cleanup day a reality, including Home Depot, Chick-fil-A, Zaxby’s , Alabama Rentals, the Hoover Rotary Club, Legends Barber Shop, Hoover Tactical Firearms, Gresham Smith & Partners, Pete’s Printing and the Hoover City Schools Foundation.
Several churches also sent volunteers to help, even though they may not have children in Hoover schools, he said. Those include Hunter Street Baptist, Green Valley Baptist, Shades Crest Baptist, Cross Creek Church and the Hoover Islamic Center, he said.
This story was updated at 3:12 p.m. with more information and additional photos.