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On Friday, the newly roofed Four Seasons Rink was buzzing with activity.

Seventh- and eighth-graders from Socoro Middle School were building picnic tables, repainting the trim on the hockey hut and picking up trash in the area.

Nearby, other students were moving rocks at the Soroco baseball field and staining the deck at the South Routt Senior Center.

The students, as well as school faculty and volunteers, were volunteering for the Soroco Service Day.

By the end of the day, eighth-grader Kindra Johnson was speckled with the teal paint she was using to paint trim. She said she had painted her bedroom before, but that was the extent of her painting experience.

"It's an awesome experience, and I'm glad we get to do it every year," Johnson said.

Susan Gonzales, also with teal paint on her face, said she liked to help out because Oak Creek was a small town and because the work made the town look better.

She said she looked forward to walking by the hockey hut, seeing the new paint and being able to say, "We did that."

Eighth-grader Mike Davis agreed.

"When I drive by, I'll be able to see the tables we built and say, 'I helped build that,'" he said.

He said he liked the chance to learn how to build things that he hadn't built before. And, he said, it was more fun than doing school work.

"(You can) hang out with your friends while doing stuff for the community," Davis said.

Nahila Bonfiglio discovered the joy and trials of volunteer work.

"It's fun but aggravating," she said as she and Genessa Heide worked on a picnic table. Someone had drilled the holes improperly, she said, making it difficult to bolt the wood together.

All the eighth-graders seem-ed to agree that the service day was fun and that volunteering to improve the community was something they would like to do again, even on a weekend.

The work, Zara Stevens said, helps the students leave their legacy.

Stevens and Kristen Moore are AmeriCorps school-based mentors who help the district through a program developed by Rocky Mountain Youth Corps and Partners in Routt County. They organized the service day, with the help of the middle school, the town of Oak Creek and others.

Moore said having the students work for about an hour and a half was perfect because it was just long enough for them to stay focused and get some good work done.

Hillary Ackerman, Ameri-Corps coordinator for Rocky Mountain Youth Corps, said the service day went smoothly.

Through the service day, the students learn to work together, gain new skills and invest themselves in the community.

"They're working together toward a common goal, and I don't think that happens naturally," Ackerman said. "This is a setting where all the barriers are erased between different kids, and they work together to accomplish the job."

The benefits of having students improve the community are far-reaching, she said. One example is the mural painted on the underpass that students walk through on the way to school.

For years, the underpass was covered with graffiti, Ackerman said. But after students painted the mural, the walls haven't been touched.

"The kids are invested in what they're doing and then they work to keep it as nice as it was," Ackerman said.