Community service repairs Friendship

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Charles Dickens
  • 14th Flying Training Wing Public Affairs
COLUMBUS AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. --  Many students at Columbus Air Force Base simply come here to learn their job and leave, with little to no impact on the surrounding area.

That's not the case with Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training class 12-15 who took the time on Jan. 4 to do something to give back to the community.

The class spent half of their Saturday cleaning up the historic Friendship Cemetery. They provided general grounds maintenance as well as cleaning headstones and realigning footstones.

"We wanted to organize a community service project as a class and this is something where we could be of some use," said 2nd Lt. Mike Olah, a SUPT student in class 12-15.
The students worked with United Way to find a project big enough for their large class and to make the project take place.

"Each class can come through and leave a little mark on Columbus and leave it better than we found it," said Olah.

The class worked throughout the day with the idea that they were going to clean up as much as they could in the time that they set aside.

"We don't have any set area we're focusing on," said Olah. "We're just trying to get as much done while we're out here as possible."

The cemetery contains approximately 15,000 graves across 60 acres of land, so this was much too big of a job for a single class to handle, but future SUPT classes now have a community service project already lined up.

Olah suggested that this is a much bigger project than just what class 12-15 can complete, and that it will be an ongoing affair between multiple classes.