Refreshing water
StuCo purchases purifying water fountain
Ryan Bircher and Mary Kay Gagnepain
The new water fountain, purchased by StuCo, March 21.
updated: March 22, 2016
StuCo recently purchased a water fountain with a purifier and water bottle filler.
The StuCo Campus Beautification Committee works to provide a better environment for students. Each year the committee has a project where they help EHS. In previous years, the projects included the bridges out front and the painted mural in the social studies hall. This year they decided to purchase a water fountain.
“A good percentage of our school is from Wildwood, and they don’t drink water from Eureka. So it tastes bad to them,” Maddie Rose Ortinau, StuCo vice president, said. “I’m excited because I don’t like the taste of ‘Eureka’ water either.”
The water fountain purifies the water so it doesn’t have the heavy taste of “Eureka” water.
“When we purchased teacher water purifier’s there seemed to be a big interest from students in getting some of their own,” Mr. Andy Gensler, StuCo sponsor, said. “There have been complaints for a long time for the taste of what they call ‘Eureka’ water, so we thought we could see to addressing that.”
The water fountain has larger benefits.
“Since you can refill your water bottles, it will save plastic,” Abby Dohogne, treasurer, said. “People will drink water from the water fountains and not have to throw away their plastic bottles over and over.”
The amount of water bottles equal to the price of the fountain is about 720 water bottles. With a population of 1886, the community purchases this number of water bottles in a week easily. On average, the Cafeteria sells 300 water bottles in one day, according to Mrs. Sheila Jaycox, cafeteria manager.
On the front of the machine a screen displays how much plastic bottle waste has been eliminated by its use. At the time of publication, the water fountain had eliminated 35 bottles in just its first six hours of use.
“We wanted to try out the water fountain in one location and see if it will be used and see if it actually addresses the issue,” Mr. Gensler said. “If it does, it may be something we expand in future years.”
The water fountain is located in the business hallway.
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