River HomeLink recently installed two brand-new filtered water bottle filling stations following the efforts of students Chloe Schultz and Charis Ahrendt. School faculty, the Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) and Battle Ground Public Schools (BGPS) came together to fund the new foundations.
Shults and Ahrendt noticed the school’s only drinking fountain sat at the main office, so they created a petition to highlight the need for additional water access. The petition acquired nearly 80 signatures and reached Principal Matt Kesler, a press release by River HomeLink stated.
Kesler recognized the need for more water access but struggled to find enough funding to purchase bottle filling stations. River HomeLink’s PTO reached out a few weeks later and offered to fund the project, the press release stated.
Kesler and the PTO approached BGPS’s maintenance supervisor John Parker for aid after realizing they could not afford to pay the installation costs. Parker agreed to help the school and donated his labor and installed the water stations, the release stated.
Without so many individuals working together, the new water bottle filling stations would not have been impossible, the press release stated.
“This is a beautiful moment where a lot of things have come together to make something happen that is actually super, super special,” Kesler said in the release.
