Students at Lakeridge Middle School cut the ribbon today on new flora  around the Bonney Lake campus’s welcome sign.

The small ceremony of parents and administrators put a bow on five months of work by Teacher Karla Banks’s Navigation 101 advisement group.

Navigation 101 is a statewide comprehensive guidance and counseling program intended to jumpstart students college preparation before they set foot in a high school. Community service is part of the program.

“For deciding what project to take on, I left it up to a vote among my students,” Banks said.

In the wake of snow and ice storms that had devastated the landscape, the students chose to beautify the sign outside their parking lot.

“I feel like we accomplished an excellent goal and we did a good thing for our community and school,” Nolan Acuna said.

Acuna is one of three students who took the lead on project fundraising. He, Emilee Brown and Simonne Shires organized a rotating schedule of students to collect coins at sixth, seventh and eighth grade lunches. The three wrote speeches for the collector of the day and counted each day’s take alongside Banks.

“It kind of teaches us about leadership and how to take a stand,” Shires said. “I would think of what I thought was the best way to do something for the project, and I would have to take a stand on it.”

Brown nodded in agreement.

“I was always kind of quiet,” she said. “I kind of just learned to stand up for what I think.”

In all, the advisement group collected more than $200, which Banks used to purchase the plants before the students got to the nitty-gritty part of their job.

“Even Mrs. Banks got her hands muddy and dirty,” Acuna said.