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NILES — Niles Cedar Lane students returned to Riverfront Park Thursday morning for the park’s annual cleanup project.

Cedar Lane and several other groups participated in the project, which included park beautification activities such as clearing overgrowth, picking up trash, clipping grass around the sidewalk, weeding and polishing the area near the Veteran’s Memorial.

“The opportunity for us to get out in the community hasn’t been there for a couple years now,” said Cedar Lane teacher Richard Hughey. “We had quite a few students jump at the opportunity to come out and do this today. It’s great to get out of the classroom and it lets us interact with them besides being just student-teacher and it’s awesome.”

Cedar Lane seniors Libee Kinous and Alex Vazquez enjoyed the experience.

“It’s so nice,” Kinous said. “It’s nice to know that we’re doing something for the world. I’m 18 and even though I am legally an adult. I feel like I can’t make a huge difference right now like I want to. So even little stuff like cleaning the park or throwing your trash away. It’s nice, it makes you feel good.”

For Vazquez and Kinous, working outside as opposed to inside the classroom was a nice change of pace and a way to get to know their schoolmates.

“I think this is the most we’ve ever really talked,” Kinous said. “It’s so nice to interact because we walk through the halls but we don’t acknowledge each other. So now that we all have to kind of work together it’s like, ‘oh my god, like we’ve had all these cool people the entire year’. Everyone’s having a great time and we all work together really well, which is great. There haven’t been any arguments about the work. We’re all here for the same reason.”