Every year Keller Williams Realty has what they call a Red Day. On this day they select a service project to help out the community with and all of the employees participate. For the past two years, Keller Williams has helped the Patrick Henry Downtown Academy. It was certainly the most exciting day on the site! THANK YOU to all of the volunteers who came out to help us.
Our final review took place downtown on the site. The reviewers had many positive comments to say and are looking forward to the completion of our project.
Beautiful Granite blocks complete with a thermal finish on one face were donated by Pope's father aka Swenson Granite. I can't wait to put them in place.
Baxter Farms donated 2 red maple trees and 2 crab apple trees to Patrick Henry. It was quite an adventure renting a trailer to pick them up and deliver them to the site.
With all of the rain these past 2 weeks it’s pretty clear that our dry creek bed will be needed. We began by digging a trench around the mounds. We then added geotextile filter fabric and gravel. This will help drain the water to two big holes on the site. At these two spots we added drainage pipe that can be used to check and see how well the site is draining.
The moment that many of us have been waiting for has finally arrived. With the asphalt gone it is time to start sculpting the mounds for the kids to run and play on. Excavators came out to help us with grueling task.
In order to enclose the classroom and provide the kids with an intimate learning space we have decided to grow bamboo alongside the border. To prevent the bamboo from spreading a rhizome barrier was constructed.
Plant expert Meghan has finalized the planting plan the entire backyard of the school. I am most excited about the trees! [Click to enlarge]
Kevin designed us a pretty sign to put on display for the community to see what we are building for them. [Click to enlarge.]
With the work on the south side of the project getting closer to completion we needed to start removing the asphalt from the rest of the schoolyard. At the beginning it seemed intimidating, but we dug deep and found the confidence to remove it. Even Principal Veal got into the Bobcat to help us out.
In order to provide the kids with a space for learning outdoors, we continued our brickwork around the superplanter up to the gym area for a nice floor for the classroom. Amazingly extra limestone blocks from the CityGarden project were donated to us to be used as benches for the classroom space.
With the completion of the ‘superplanter’ we set out to finalize the formal garden space by adding some additional raised beds and a limestone chat path. We also started detailing the superplanter with pavers set into the topsoil. Once that was complete we invited some of the kids to help us plant!
In order to finish the superplanter we connected wood to the posts and filled it up with topsoil. Some of the Patrick Henry kids helped us rake the topsoil. We also laid gravel down on the path behind the planter and then put sand on top in preparation to laid down the bricks.
