VANCOUVER, Wash. — When you build something from the ground up, where do you start?
“A lot of earth work, moving, and foundation building,” said Skanska VP account manager Trevor Wyckoff speaking about the new Mountain View High School going up in Vancouver.
A strong foundation is important for a construction project and it’s good for a family. They’ve got both at Mountain View High.
“On our construction projects we love to include students and staff in the community, especially for the school projects,” said Wyckoff.
Skanska is the contractor for the new school, right next door to the current one. It’s been a challenge to include students in the project because of the pandemic until Wyckoff had the idea to turn a temporary wall into a canvas.
“We all take a lot of pride in what we do,” he said. “And it's great to see the recognition from the students, and the thank yous from the students on the work that we're doing out here for them.”
Three of those “thank yous” are from MVHS seniors Amanda Leung, Parisa Hariri, and Chance Perry. When it comes to where to start, they get it.
“You have to build a foundation. I feel like that's what we're doing right now is we're building a really strong foundation for the future generations of Mountain View High School,” Perry said.
“You know when it's pouring down rain when it's sunny when it's hot, that they're here working on our new school and we want to show our appreciation to them,” added Leung.
Thanks to a donation of ply sheets from Skanska, and a group of leadership students led by this trio, about twenty murals have been painted and hung up on the job site.
“It really is something that is inspirational to the construction crews that are out here working,” Wyckoff said.
The school won’t be completed until 2022, which means these seniors will never attend class in the new building. So why put in this kind of effort?
“It was the graduating classes before us that left their legacy and like created the culture that's here and so it's our responsibility to show the importance of it to the classes below us,” said Hariri.
No disrespect to the crews hard at work, but there’s no doubt the strongest foundation at Mountain View is found in the classrooms, not under them.
“I love our culture here and our community is really strong,” said Leung.