James McQueen Public School here has received a grant of $10,000 to help it go green.
The school, which has a yard completely paved over, has been working on the project since late 2007. Its green school yard committee of principal John Cassano, teachers Lisa Arnott and Karen Baxter, and school council members Bonnie Arnew and Laura Klein have been working on the project ever since then.
The plan includes the creation of softer play spaces for the students, the planting of trees to provide shade and local flowering plants and greenery.
Now, the school has been provided with $10,000 from the TD Canada Trust Friends of the Environment fund. That money will be used to finish the first phase of green changes already begun in the yard, and to start the second phase next spring, which will include benches and many more trees and an area of grass for the students.
“It’s take a year to develop and put phase one of our plan into effect,” said Cassano. “Our goal is to make our school yard softer, more interesting for pupils, and an improved green space for the community to enjoy.”
In June, parent-raised and school committed funds purchased 60 Virginia creeper vines that were planted around the school’s perimeter to create a wall of green. A professional landscape architect’s services were also secured to draft working plans, based on student ideas of what they would like to be able to do in their school yard. That plan includes naturalized areas, trees, local flowering plants, shrubberies, and grass.
This fall, the school broke ground with a team working over a September weekend to install wooden boundary areas that were later filled with sanitary wood mulch and interesting ornamental sitting stones, supplied by Centre Wellington and PCL Construction.
Cassano said the school thanks Bruce and Kelley Johnston, Bill Vanderkuip, Scott and Sheree Bessey, John den Hoed, Matt Lott and Mike Punter for that work.
There have also been several sponsors:
– the Howe-Von Massow and Arnott families, for donating funds to purchase Fantasy maple trees;
– the Outdoor Woodworker for the construction of the wood boundaries and sandbox;
– Centre Wellington for the donation and delivery of mulch;
– PLC Construction for the donation and delivery of stone;
– Bellamy Farm Services for preferential pricing on excavation;
– the Upper Grand Learning Foundation cash donations from the community;
– Littletree Nursery for preferential pricing on a Norway maple tree; and
– Wayne’ Tree Moving for preferential pricing on installing two Fantasy maple trees.
