A seemingly small, but perhaps very impactful change in our high school occurred this past week. After years of  water fountain issues all around the school, we can finally say never again. Thank to the efforts of the Marine Biology Club, VHS finally has a water station to fill any bottle with clean, filtered water.

The various water fountains around the school have been in terrible condition. Students had a selection of fountains dispensing yellowish water, water that came out white and turned clear after shaking it up, water that was room temperature, and spigots that dribbled water out and could not fill a student’s water bottle.. Without enough money in the budget to fix this problem, it would have continued to be that way without change until the Marine Biology Club had an idea last year.

With the guidance of biology teacher Paula Ramos, the facilitator of the club, they set a goal to work towards providing safe, healthy drinking water for the students and faculty. Senior Chris Aldiero took the lead on this project, doing all of the primary research towards getting this water station and finding the best priced one at $1300. After the club ran t-shirt sales and bake sales throughout the year, by this time they finally raised enough money to install the system. Following administrative approval, they installed the system this past week.

When asked, Ms. Ramos expressed not only her excitement in regards to the initiative, but her hopes to install enough in the next few years to replace all of the water fountains throughout the building as well. She went on to explain that “Our goal now is to remove the use of plastic bottles from the school altogether”, and that they will attempt to do so by raising awareness and will soon start selling reusable water bottles to the students with the funding going towards more station.

Thanks to Ms. Ramos, Christopher Aldiero, and the entire Marine Biology Club for making this possible!