WARSAW — Can you imagine cleaning 1.6 million square feet of buildings or mowing 261 acres? Would you want to maintain 40 acres of asphalt pavement, especially when it means shoveling snow in the winter? Imagine picking up all the trash after a football game, with 24,000 stadium seats to clear or filling 1,200 soap pumps and replenishing 800 toilet paper dispensers. Sounds like a job for a super hero, right?

It is. Warsaw Community Schools’ 68 custodians and 10 maintenance staff members are unsung heroes. Every day, they serve thousands of students and WCS employees by caring for all school facilities.They mop floors, clean up messes and throw away trash and invest in students’ lives.

A new Washington Elementary student named Sam experienced this firsthand during the school’s open house. He was nervous because he had come from a smaller school and was afraid he’d miss his friends.

His mom tells the story like this: “After some prodding, we arrived at the open house. When my son saw all of the cars in the lot and people coming in and out, he didn’t want to go into the school. We finally got him out of the car and up the steps. This alone was a major achievement.”

“Upon opening the door, a custodian who was working in the hallway smiled and greeted Sam. The man’s name was Mr. Johnson, the head custodian at Washington.

“He must have recognized right away how nervous Sam was, quickly striking up a conversation with him. He said, ‘You must be new here. You are going to love it! Do you like to go to the lakes? There are waders and fishing poles up in the hallway.’ He then asked who his teacher was. Sam replied, ‘Miss Slone.’ Upon hearing that, the custodian’s face lit up as he said, ‘You got the best teacher this school has! How did you get so lucky? You are going to have so much fun this year!’ Mr. Johnson probably doesn’t know how much he helped my son that evening.”

The same type of interaction happens at the high school. Larry Burkhart, the head custodian, explained that his staff shows new eighth graders where to go when they first arrive as freshmen at the school. “I have walked around to classes three or four times with a student until he can get in his mind where he is supposed to go.”Custodians tend to act as extra hall supervision during the day, and as a result, develop meaningful friendships with the students.“Every year during graduation, I stand near the end of the aisle and five or 10 students will come over and hug me, thanking me for the impact I had on them. We had one student who was really good at welding, but was falling behind as academically. I took him under my wing. Years later, he introduced me to his wife and baby, and told me how he is making it in life. He now has a great job at a welding place in Ft. Wayne,” Larry explained.