When Old Rochester Regional High School students return to school next Tuesday they'll likely notice spruced up memorial gardens throughout the campus.

That's thanks to teachers, students, and a community member who showed up at the school on Aug. 15 with work gloves, shovels, rakes, and a desire to beautify the school campus -- while paying tribute to students who did not make it to graduation or left an indelible mark on school history.

"Last year was the first year we did this," ORR High math teacher Karen Browning said. "I was walking by these (memorial gardens) and thought they were looking neglected."

Browning started talking to other teachers, some of whom remembered the students memorialized, and got them to take up the cause of sprucing up the memorial gardens.

Several student groups joined the effort. Students in the "E.L.I.T.E" --“Exceptional Learning and Individualized Teaching Essentials --  program at ORRHS, Advanced Placement environmental  classes, and the Environmental Club helped plant bulbs and water the containers during the summer.  And there were donations from the school's Ambassadors Club and the Parent Teachers Organization.

There are five memorial gardens, dating back to 1979, with the most recent added in 2014. They include gardens for:, Jonathon Kyle and Keith Johnson, Class of '79;  Melissa Duarte Class of '97; Lauren Franz, Class of '11;  Dana Dourdeville, Class of '11; and a garden donated by retired teacher Ms. Mozaz.

"It's to honor them," said Lynn Connor, a biology and marine biology teacher at the high school who showed up with her feisty little rescue dog to help manicure the gardens.

"It keeps their memories alive," Browning added.

Standing in front of one garden while her fellow volunteers weeded and spruced up the area, Connor turned reflective.

"This particular garden is for Missy Duarte," Connor said. "She passed away from bacterial meningitis the first year I was here."

Duarte's memorial garden had to be moved from its original location when the junior high school and high schools were being built and reconstructed. Connor said she was happy "Missy's Garden" was relocated.

"It's a popular place for prom photos," Connor said.

Beyond sentimentality, there were other reasons for the gardens clean up.

"It's curb appeal," said Elaine Botelho of Mattapoisett, who was there representing the Mattapoisett Women's Club. "It makes a beautiful presentation to the school."

Botelho, an avid gardener, came fully equipped to weed and beautify the gardens. She also came with advice and some floral transplants from her own garden. Spotting an interesting vine creeping up a tree, she explained to two students that those vines, as interesting as they might look, can choke the tree to death.

"Once a teacher, always a teacher," Botelho, a retired elementary school teacher, said with a smile.

But at least one of her young gardners is already on her way to becoming a master gardener.

"I've always gardened in general," Madeleine Root, 17, a senior at ORR High, said. "My whole family gardens. My mom gardens, and her mom gardens and her mom gardened. It's always been a family thing. "

"It gets you outside and caring about your environment," Root said. "It's an educational experience, as well."

Her best friend, Abigail Lacock, 17, doesn't have a gardening legacy, but she had her own reasons for being there.

"I just figured I'd help," Lacock, also a senior at ORR, said. "I've always wanted to start my own garden, but I haven't yet."

"I can help," Root replied.