I hope everyone was pleasantly surprised and maybe a little astounded at all the beautification projects that have happened since last week around our school. Here is a rundown of completed projects:
1. dry laid brick panel installed (just to the right as you exit the center rear doors. This was done to mirror the alumni brick laid several years ago. Completed through Hands on Nashville with 12 volunteers from Regions Bank. P.S. They were only scheduled to work 6 hours, but felt so strongly about the project they stayed 8 hours to complete. Never in our wildest dream did we think they could complete anything beyond prepping the site to lay bricks on Saturday!! But they did it all. Amazing!)
2. erosion ditches on vista walk filled. Erosion was bad enough to start negatively affecting the foundation of the building).
3. new planting bed at Meigs sign
4. Mulching 130 trees and bushes (Yes, 130 trees and bushes!)
5. 2 new planting beds at front entrance
6. dug out and planted new cafeteria bed and yew hedge (I think this project is the star, actually. Fun Company is so appreciative they have asked to be responsible for upkeep and maintenance of this garden.)
7. installed river rock on two 8th avenue ditches (You HAVE to check this out!)
8. picnic tables pulled up and reset and half moved to other side (These are not permanently set, so give us feedback if the table arrangement is not conducive to activities.)
9. filled and planted 6 new planters...all retrieved from the Metro Warehouse for no cost.
10. Planted new magnolia tree behind school near cafeteria
11. Removing juniper hedge on 8th avenue side(half completed)
Todd Breyer, Brianna's dad did by himself on Saturday afternoon and Sunday:
11. planted up new gym bed
12. yews along front entrance (Peter Gregory and Kathryn Firsching, Jacob Vest's parents)
13. Knockout roses on 8th street side
Meigs parent Todd Breyer is a landscape architect and has designed a multi-year layout for campus beautification. He is working closely with our PTO landscaping committee headed up by Kathryn Firsching. They have been allocated $5,000 from the PTO savings account for this first phase of projects this fall. We are working on calling in favors as well as submitting grants to make every dollar go twice as far.
We had 60 volunteers through Hands on Nashville from the Nashville Bar Association show up in the rain for work at 8am on Saturday and they went on with the task list despite the weather. They hung in there and worked till noon. We had over a dozen parents donate hospitality items to keep them well-fed and hydrated. They were so impressed with our efforts they kept saying they had never experienced such warm hospitality from any school before.
If you are so moved that you feel like telling someone how appreciative or grateful you are, I have a couple of ideas (who, me?) Todd Breyer has spent easily 100 hours on the landscape architectural plan, task lists, surveying the campus for all improvement needs, and was spearheading all the efforts over the weekend. His email is toddbreyer@bellsouth.net. Kathryn's landscaping committee headed up each individual task site on Saturday and were unrecognizable with the mud caking them. I didn't know people could be so wet or so dirty, yet having fun. Her email is Kathryn.S.Firscing@usace.army.mil and I'm sure she would forward to her group of parents. Hands on Nashville remarked that their volunteers love to get thank you notes from the kids. Again, our volunteers were from Nashville Bar Association and Regions Bank. |
