By Rohan Miglani
Staff Writer

When walking into the Student Union at Lake Forest Academy, students will see the amazing downstairs hangout area with pool tables, and soft cushion seating. Upstairs there is a mix of tables to eat food and soft seating area to hang out, but one consistent problem with the Student Union is the giant messes left by students of the school.
The Student Union was introduced to Lake Forest Academy at the start of the 2016-17 school year and is one of the main places where students gather during free periods, to eat lunch, or after school. This is a theme that has been consistent since the inception of the Student Union, as students are unable to maintain the cleanliness of the Student Union, as there is routinely food on the floor and plates left out. This creates large messes that the dining staff and facilities have to clean.
This constant effort of always having to do extra work- pushing in chairs, picking up food from the floor, and placing dishes into the dish return- creates frustration for the dining staff, according to Debbie Lindstrom, General Manager of Dining Services, “to avoid staying later dining, staff must work much faster in order to punch out on time”. This does not only affect the dining staff according to Debbie Lindstrom as it takes a toll on facilities who have to clean up the soft seating area in the student union as they “vacuum the carpet, pick up any snack wrappers/food items left on the little tables, couches, and floor, and also bring up the dishes that are left in the lower level”.
We as an LFA community have to do a better job respecting the time and effort of our dining staff and facilities. Just taking 20 seconds to either clean up any food that may have been dropped or return our dishes to the dish return isn’t too much extra work- and leads to a better, cleaner SU in the long run. Along with this, one of the most important things that we can do to show our appreciation for the dining staff is to say a simple “thank you” as, according to Lindstrom,, as it shows the appreciation they have for the dining staff and the work they do.
The LFA dining staff and facilities do so much for our school, as they wash our dishes make our food, and maintain the cleanliness of the Student Union. As an LFA community, we need to start taking more of an initiative to clean up after ourselves and save the dining staff and facilities the extra work by just being responsible. This extra 20 seconds that we can take out of our day, could save the dining staff and facilities 30 extra minutes of work, so let’s start respecting this amazing Student Union, and help maintain this building we are so privileged to have.