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VALLEY — Four members of the Valley High Ecology Club and their faculty advisor, Ellen Emfinger, were guests at last Wednesday’s meeting of the Kiwanis Club of Valley.

Emfinger told members of the club that it had been very rewarding for her to have worked with some of these students from the time they were at Lafayette Lanier Elementary School and now at Valley High. Emfinger aught at the elementary school then and is now at Valley High.

The portion of Moore’s Creek that flows past city hall and the school was seeing improvements from a sedimentation grant at the time. “It stirred their interest in beatification efforts,” Emfinger said. “They helped in the effort by setting out some plants near the creek. I think they learned from it that they like to play in the dirt and to watch things grow.”

By the time students such as Simone Floyd, David Paschal and Kyzer Zeunges got to Valley High they were all in with ecology, or the scientific study of how living organisms interact with their environment. An ecology club was formed, and one of its first projects was to clean out an old greenhouse on the VHS campus to have a work area. They received a $250 grant from the Chambers County Commission for their interest in beautifying the local community by taking part in one-mile cleanups along roadsides in Valley.

Members of the club documented their activities in a scrapbook. They did such a good job of it that their scrapbooks have won first-place awards in statewide competitions.

The City of Valley has an annual Clean Up Week in April, and the Ecology Club joins in to help out but picking up litter on the CV Railway Trail.

Emfinger said there’s a side benefit to what they do. “They’ve found that when you do things together it’s fun,” she said. “They bond together and become good friends.”

Emfinger’s goal in having an Ecology Club was to help build civic-minded kids who can hopefully become civic-minded adults.

It was a good experience for them to have hosted a lunch and learn program where they talked about what they had been doing as Ecology Club members. Articles about the club have appeared in The Valley Times-News and in a statewide newsletter.

“We are active in as clean campus program and in an Adopt-a-Mile program,” Emfinger said. “They have made dog and cat toys for our local humane society.”

Club President Simone Floyd said she likes to take outings with fellow club members to West Point Lake. “We like to take hikes on the nature trails and to see the really nice butterfly garden they have near the Project Management Office. We have learned so much on our visits to the lake. We want to thank the personnel there for being so helpful.”

Ecology Club members have participated in litter cleanups along the lakeshore.

“We love taking part in our Adopt-a-Mile cleanups,” Floyd said. “It’s good for the community and great exercise for us.”

Members of the club would love to see a raised-bed greenhouse at Valley High.

“Our club has been around for two years now,” Floyd added. “I think we have made some great strides forward.”

Simone has gotten her younger sister Adelaide to join the club and she loves it. She’s a ninth grader at Valley High.

“I’ve enjoyed being in the club,” Adelaide said. “It has been a learning experience for all of us. We all have a good time when we are doing things together.”

“It’s our dream to have a greenhouse,” Emfinger said. “The old one was sold to a farmer in Kentucky, and we’d love to have a new one. It would cost around $4,000, and we are halfway there with fundraising.”