Students may have noticed some new additions to the building, as two new water bottle refill stations were constructed in mid-January. The change comes courtesy of a Laker Parent Club grant funding a proposal by the LOHS Green Team, a club dedicated to developing LOHS into a Certified Oregon Green School.

The two new stations cost $4000 and were funded by a grant from Laker Club. One is located beneath the main stairwell, while the other is in the social studies hall.

The idea for the installations arose after Breck Foster, social studies teacher and Green Team advisor, realized that she “just always heard my students complaining about not having access to the water easily and also just being aware that there is a correlation between people are going to be less likely to buy something to drink if they can just bring a reusable water bottle.” Junior Izzy Rowland, a leading member of the Green Team, added that “It’s obviously a problem that we only had one [water bottle filling water fountain] and one of the easiest ways to reduce plastic waste… is to get more of the fountains.” She continued, describing that while plastic water bottle use “is not as much of a culture here, in Oregon, as it is in, say, California and other places they have not as great tap water, but I think it’s especially helpful because here in Oregon we have more of a green mindset.”

The process from grant proposal to construction was long, with the Green Team receiving the grant in spring 2019 and constructing the water fountains in January 2020. “Even though [the grant] was awarded over the summer, everything takes a really long time … even [with support], it took until January to have them all installed.”

Since their construction, the fountains have saved a combined 4,207 water bottles as of Jan 30, according to the estimates provided by the machines themselves.