Whether to fulfill the school's required 40 hours of community service or to just pitch in and help the school, several students took up gardening tools and paintbrushes for the school's "beautification day" on May 10.

One of them was sophomore Heriberto Carrillo. This was his first beautification day, and his job was to help till some dirt to prepare it for lavender flowers. He could be fulfilling his community service hours elsewhere but he chose to earn them at the school.

"If I have to work," he said, "it should be for my school."

Carrillo was one of a handful of students who arrived at the 9 a.m. starting time. Organizers and experienced workers say things don't normally pick up on beautification days until 10:30 a.m.

Sophomores Ryan Bates and Diana Schnabel joined Carillo in tilling soil. This was also Bates' first beautification day, but it was Schnabel's second.

They were not there just because of community service requirements and could have spent their Saturday elsewhere but chose to come to school.

"Why not get involved?" Bates said. "I mean, what else are you going to do? Sit on your couch and waste away your life?"

Biology teacher Mark Cahn helped create the campus beautification program 13 years ago. The potato trees planted in 1996 and the redwood trees planted in 1994 are testimonies to Cahn's efforts to prevent the campus from becoming a dreary complex of blocky, Cold War­era concrete buildings.

"If you work just a little then you can have a campus that doesn't look too industrial," he said. "And it helps everyone feel good about coming to school. I don't see why anyone would want to try to learn in an ugly campus."

But plants weren't the only beautification activity that day.

Nearby, freshmen Diem Vo and Paola Montes De Oca were touching up the outside lockers, which had been painted red with yellow letters to represent the school's colors. The letters will eventually read, "Welcome to Ram Territory." But only the first two words had been painted, as the two dabbed at the "W" with paint.

The pair has more than enough time in their high school careers to earn 40 community service hours each, but they said they wanted to help out now.

Even if the two complete their community service requirement, they'll still come to help out on clean-up days in their senior year, Vo said. "The work really isn't all that hard, and it can be a lot of fun."

Montes De Oca said she'd like the school to look as good as it can as soon as possible.

"If people don't want to come and help, they shouldn't complain about the shape the campus is in," she said.

Her sister Maribel, a junior, is one of the beautification day's organizers, along with classmate Giulietta Pezzaniti.

The two juniors met their community service quota a long time ago. Pezzaniti lost count of the hours she's accrued but estimates around 90 hours.

Participating in the school's beautification days earns students the needed hours, which can be especially important if graduation is looming for seniors.

"It's a real pain if you put it off," Pezzaniti warns.

Maribel Montes De Oca adds that the more students get involved, the more control they have in what the campus can look like. For example, bare walls can be painted with murals instead of a single color, she said.

Assistant Principal of Activities Tina Van Laarhoven said that there are normally only two beautification days per school year because there are very few Saturdays in which the school's athletic teams aren't playing. No games mean more students on campus cleaning and fixing rather than playing or spectating.

The campus has only one groundskeeper, so it needs as much help as it can get, Van Laarhoven said.