Sprucing up Parkside

A tiny elementary school, nestled among some residential avenues in San Mateo, has seen better days. It was state-of-the-art when it was built in the 1950s but its entry into the 21st century has been fraught with a never-ending struggle with entropy.

But come this Saturday, a third-generation San Mateo resident who attended Parkside Elementary at 1685 Eisenhower St. in the 1970s is marching in with a 100-strong team of volunteers to refurbish the campus — to undo in one day several years’ worth of wear and tear.

Donn Lovell, a 44-year-old father of a second grader who attends Parkside, is the current president of an unofficial offshoot of the school’s PTA called the Parkside Dads. The PDs is a group of volunteers, mostly fathers of current students, who dedicate their time to visit the campus on weekends and perform minor chores, make cosmetic fixes and other "honey-dos.”

"The school ran pretty well until Proposition 13,” Lovell said about the voter-approved 1978 ballot initiative. "Our school is located in a neighborhood of hard-working people, but it seems that other schools in the district seem to get better treatment. I mean, you can go to other schools and you won’t see weeds or graffiti, but it’s also the socio-economic status of where they’re at.”

So the PDs try to make up for what the district can’t afford to fix.

"Unfortunately, when things break around here, the school just takes them away. They aren’t put back because there’s no money to put them back. So when we lost one of our handball backstops, it just went away.”

Recent weekend projects for the PDs have included sanding and treating wooden picnic tables and benches or basic landscaping. But one of the dads is a coach at the College of San Mateo.

"He approached me and said ‘This is what we do every year. Our boys have to do a community service project. In the past, we’ve donated to San Mateo Parks and Recreation Department. Can you use my people?’”

So this Saturday, Lovell will be directing about 100 football players plus some other volunteers in the most ambitious fix-up project for the school.

Lovell will tell you, however, that the real challenge is in the labor. Once people find out what you’re doing for the betterment of the community, he said, help finds you.

That reality began to show last year when he and the school’s principal Lynn Gurnee applied for — and received the full amount — a $5,000 "Toolbox for Education Grant” from Lowe’s Companies, Inc. a home improvement department store chain, for the Fall 2009 grant cycle.

Since 2009, Lowe’s has awarded 140 grants to California schools, 11 of which are in San Mateo County.

"The beauty of it is I had a hard time spending the money. I’d go to Home Depot and when I told them what I was doing they told me I didn’t need to buy anything. They gave me all their dying plants. So I’d bring them here and the kids will prune them back and fertilize them back to life.

"I went to Kelly-Moore to ask about eco-friendly paints and (they also) said, ‘you can have whatever you want’ because the company was founded in San Carlos that donates paint to local charities,” Lovell said.

"By doing what we’re doing today ... the goal is to preserve the school for — what I want to say would be at least — another decade,” he said. "We’re using quality products by quality vendors.”

As for the campus’ troubles?

"We have our share of problems. On evenings and weekends, vandals will come and drink but slowly but surely we’re addressing the issues,” he said.

Even after his son Connor graduates to later grades, he may still participate with the PDs.

"I was born and raised in this neighborhood a couple blocks over. Like my son, we grew up here and you consider this (campus) as ‘your park’: A safe haven for children to come and play.

"I just want to make it fun for the kids while they’re here (and still kids).”

The educational aspect of teaching the value of hard work also makes this project less of a chore, Lovell said.

"We have to learn ‘sweat equity,’ you know?” he said. "Pulling weeds, sowing soil. Gardening is kind of a lost art.”

And then there’s the lessen that many hands make lighter work.

"The little kids here are excited that the big kids are coming here to help. And it inspires more parents to get involved. And in turn, be inspired to help out in their kids’ schools.”

Have Lovell walk you around the campus of his childhood and he’ll be quick to point out what was where and how it looked.

He looks wistfully at a large blacktop map of the United States that Lovell remembers having made while a student here in the 1975-76 school year: Remembering when each state still had a star representing its respective capital.

Now age has all but removed the stars and the landscape is pockmarked with cracks and dried mud splotches.

"We’re going to do a little cleanup but we’re going to let it get a little worse before we repaint it. (Ultimately) we want to do cute things to it, like put a ‘You Are Here’ sign. The color scheme is ugly, so I need to come up with different colors.”

For more information about the Parkside Dads, write to parksidedadsclub@aol.com.