Mission Viejo Grads Replace Yard Signs, Buoyed By Support
MISSION VIEJO, CA — They say it takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a neighborhood to support them. Residents of a Mission Viejo neighborhood banded together this week after graduation yard signs were removed by their homeowners association. Within 24 hours, the homeowners association's management company did an about-face on the removals, at least for a while.
On Wednesday, Patch learned that the Mirasol HOA neighborhood of graduating seniors — and promoting elementary and middle schoolers — were not allowed to have graduation announcements in their front yards. Instead of being told to remove them, a homeowners association board member did the sign removal herself, according to a parent.
Patch reported on the uprooting of the yard signs, and families described what the sudden loss of celebratory signs meant to them during a season of lost milestones. Read: HOA Removes Mission Viejo Grads' Yard Sign Celebration: Residents
Patch also asked neighbors to share their thoughts on the situation. In response, almost 100 readers shared their support, ranging from asking "why?" to wondering about the legal ability to remove an item from someone's property without first notifying them of the action.
Reader Jan Haley-Soule described the heartbreak that she said parents must have felt. "This is not a political sign, a sign that expresses a belief," she wrote. Haley-Soule said she has helped her now-grown children through earthquakes, fires and even a hurricane. But helping a child find normalcy during something no one had experienced in their lifetime? "I cannot imagine what the parents of today are telling their children, because no one knows the answers. We need to support these parents in trying to find some normalcy in their children's lives. Shame on the person who took the signs."
"This is a petulant move by a Board member that is nothing short of Dickens' Scrooge, well before the revelation," Paul Snapp wrote to Patch. "She could not allow a minor, nonoffensive way to celebrate a canceled milestone in many peoples' lives?"
Reader Kim told Patch that she drove down her street today and saw a family "decorating their front yard for their daughter's graduation."
"It brought tears to my eyes," she said.
Cheryl Branson, another Mission Viejo resident, wrote that she "was appalled by the actions of the board member who removed the signs."
"The quarantine has robbed all the parents of the proud moments of pride they expected to feel as their son or daughter walked up to the stage and received their diploma," Branson wrote.
"The signs were sent out by the schools!" she added. "Maybe your board should consider reimbursing the districts who paid for the signs."
There were no reader responses or comments in favor of the sign removals.
Patch also had reached out to the Mirasol Homeowners Association, and to Total Property Management Co., which oversees the Mirasol HOA.
On Thursday, Jerri Boone, the executive director of Total Property Management Co., responded to Patch and said the yard signs had been returned or were available to residents who identified and requested them.
"Residents are allowed to display the signs within the community through the end of June," Boone said. She added that both the board and management "regret any inconvenience or insensitivity during this time."
For the families who lost their signs Wednesday, things are a bit brighter now.
Dad Josh Smisko received his son Jake's fifth grade graduation sign back from the association. Still, he is smarting from the action that removed it in the first place.
"These fifth graders are missing out on their spelling bee (of which he is a defending champion at his school), a carnival, a millionaire readers club, lake party, a school' clap out,' yearbook signing, and their ceremony in front of friends and family," Smisko tells us. "Taking his sign was pretty petty on top of everything else they are missing out on."
Still, the Smisko family replaced the sign and is displaying it alongside a replica that was drawn by Jake's little brother.
For Santa Margarita Catholic High School senior Sofia Muratalla, the sadness at having her graduation signs taken wasn't about the sign itself.
To her, the meaning was deeper.
After having been accepted into Texas Christian University in the fall, she had felt life was "falling into place," she told Patch.
Then, when her graduation yard sign mysteriously disappeared, along with those of other kids in the neighborhood, it wasn't the physical signs that mattered. It was what they represented.
She has found a "juxtaposition" of the quarantine life in the book, "The Great Gatsby," which she used in her final arts project for Santa Margarita Catholic High School Advanced Painting class.
"It takes place in the 1920s, 100 years ago, during another pandemic," she said. "The moral of the story is the reason as to why Gatsby is 'great.' He is the only person who held on to hope."
Sofia shared an image of that painting "to give back hope to the people who need it most, right now."
To her, this experience has been a lesson in gratitude.
"To me," Sofia explains, "these little signs show gratitude that will bring this generation closer together; no matter if you are graduating from fifth, eighth,12th grade or college, we are being called on to make our world a better place after this crisis."
Do you have a message to the graduating classes of 2020? Let us know in comments, or email your Patch editor: Ashley.Ludwig@Patch.com
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Read also:
HOA Removes Mission Viejo Grads' Yard Sign Celebration: Residents
Santa Margarita Catholic High School 2020 Graduating Class
Coronavirus In California: What To Know Week Of Monday, May 18
This article originally appeared on the Mission Viejo Patch
