On Monday, April 26, the PCM high school will be hosting its annual community service day. Although the school has good intentions for service day, it has sparked controversy within the high school. The controversy is based around the ending of a long tradition: the community service day shirts. 

This year the school announced that they will not be purchasing service day shirts for the students to wear during the event. Senior Ethan Camu is upset about this decision. 

“I’m outraged. It’s an absolute travesty that they would even consider trying to take out the tradition of the PCM serves shirts. Not only do the shirts help us represent our school, but it shows our dedication to helping out the community,” said Camu. 

However, it was not necessarily the school’s decision to put an end to the shirts. This year the waste management company Metro Waste, who had previously sponsored the event, is no longer giving the school money for the event.

“In the past we have used a special fund that has money in it from Metro Waste. That money has since basically stopped. We didn’t have the ability to tap into the funds that were in there because they had stopped giving us money. It was kind of like a grant situation and because that has stopped we couldn’t get the t-shirts this year,” said high school principal Kristen Souza. 

PCM has held a community service day since 2014 and has had shirts every year. On this day students travel from house to house within the community to help people in need. Last year service day was unfortunately cancelled due to COVID. This year will be the first year without t-shirts.