Music House, a guidance group helmed by teacher Evan Green, staking out where the litter clean up will be along Springside and Wintergreen Avenue. Claire Armstrong Photo.
The weather was brisk last Friday, but students at Common Ground High School felt motivated and energetic when getting down to business.
Setting up around wooden benches, seniors Santino Pizarro and Bronislaw Lasocki made a plan to clean up the litter located near Springside Avenue, in between Wintergreen Brook and nearby Wintergreen Avenue. Splitting into teams, students reached for rubber gloves and trash grabbers, and set out to make a difference. By an hour in, they had come across everything from nip bottles to a discarded bicycle, a soccer ball, trashed thermostat, toy train, and tire. By the end of the day, it would be on its way to the Hamden Recycling Center—all 165 pounds of it.
This effort to tidy up the avenues and river bed came from Pizarro and Lasocki, whose senior projects are focused on litter clean-up along Springside Avenue and the expansion of the Wintergreen Brook Urban Oasis. This Oasis was created by a senior project in 2015 and has been maintained by Common Ground Students and members of the Urban Resources Initiative.
Pizarro explained that the project came, in part, from the desire for a cleaner and more beautiful school community. Wintergreen and Springside Avenues are the main roads that students, staff, and visitors take on their way to Common Ground’s campus. Feeling like those streets are a dumping ground doesn’t just lower student and staff morale—it also negatively impacts the environment and makes the surrounding community feel disinvested in.
In addition to Santino and Bronislaw’s project, Common Ground students tackled 15 separate projects throughout the community. Students worked with local organizations such as the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen (DESK), and Loaves and Fishes. Two groups went out to support King Robinson Interdistrict Magnet School and Elm City Montessori Elementary School, and one group traveled to Newhallville’s Learning Corridor.
Alexi Zieher, a member of the all-outdoor guidance group called Field House, helps the New Haven Parks Department clear an area for native plant restoration at the West Rock Nature Center. Sarah Field Photo.
These community partners, and many others, hosted guidance groups from Common Ground for roughly three hours while they worked, and afterwards students returned to Common Ground for dismissal and lunch.
Community Service Day at Common Ground is an event that happens once every semester, right before Thanksgiving and spring break respectively. Two hundred and twenty students in their guidance groups—that’s students' four-year family within the larger Common Ground community—are encouraged to pick a project and participate in helping improve their (our) community.
“It’s a way to help students, help New Haven, build Community, and give our students the opportunity to practice leadership and reflection skills,” said Joel Tolman, Common Ground’s director of community impact and engagement.
Those hours go towards the 15 hours of community service required of all Common Ground students, as well as the 50 hours needed to earn a New Haven Promise scholarship. But just as importantly, “student community service makes a real difference on campus and in New Haven,” Tolman said.
Students from Common Ground's "Art House" and Ms Kathleen Bergman’s 10th grade guidance group organize donations of food and clothing at Loaves and Fishes. Lizanne Cox Photo.
Kathleen Bergman and Arianna Alamo's guidance groups went to Loaves and Fishes, located at the Church of St. Paul & St. James in New Haven’s Wooster Square neighborhood, to help with preparing food for people who rely on the emergency food provider on Saturday mornings.
As students split up, one group moved food from a large truck into multiple cars that would ferry it to different locations and households across the city. Another group moved food around the pantry, set up tables, and assembled 32 to-go bags of groceries.
The last group moved donated clothes boxes to a storage area, and started prepping the clothes, organizing the shoes and clothing by gender, and separating out items for a children's section. Since everything was going to be given away the supervisor allowed the students to pick out some clothing to take home.
“I participated in this event because it is fun to help the community while working with my classmates,” said Jeremiah Dennie. “I would most definitely recommend this experience to other students!”
Claire Armstrong is a senior at Common Ground High School and a graduate of the Arts Council's 2025 Youth Arts Journalism Program.