Students and faculty gathered at Elizabethton High School to announce the culmination of four months of work from the student body: the first ever locker rooms for the soccer teams.

The afternoon began with a small presentation from the students in the high school library, detailing what went on during the project’s development and what they learned from the experience.

Junior Evan Carter said the project originated as part of their Community Improvement class.

“We originally planned on remodeling an original building to put the lockers in,” Carter said.

The new locker room currently features 26 head-to-foot lockers and bathroom facilities. In addition, they said the locker room will also be a place to relax and hang out socially, with additions such as a couch, Playstation and a television.

The project came to fruition with the help of the Elizabethton City Schools maintenance team and student volunteers.

The project marks a crucial development for the soccer teams: until now, they did not have their own locker room. Instead, they had to share one with the volleyball teams.

“The soccer team was the only sport without their own locker room,” he said.

After the presentation, the group went outside to the new locker room and held a ribbon-cutting ceremony outside.

The project is a combination of a variety of local support and donations, including Big Dan’s and the LaPorte family.

“We started the project in early November,” Carter said.

The class itself is broken up into two different semester-long classes: Community Improvement A and B. Carter is currently in the latter half of the course.

“We have been working on this for about four months,” he said. “This was a community effort.”

As for what’s next, he said they are already working on their next big community project. He and his fellow students discussed initial plans for a full-on sports complex for the tri-cities area, and though they settled on the locker room for this one, Carter said they plan to go back to that idea in the future.

“[In this class,] you are able to go out and make connections,” Carter said. “Thanks to everyone’s efforts, we have our first locker room to enjoy.”