Grants enable school to have greenhouse

Thanks to the donations from area businesses and the hard work of many people, students at Hayden Meadows had a brand new greenhouse waiting for them when they got back to school Tuesday.

Fourth-grade teacher Vern Harvey applied for a number of grants in hopes of paying for the greenhouse. He wanted to give his students a hands-on way to learn math and science and thought the greenhouse would be a great way to do so. The result is a 20-by-48-foot greenhouse, surrounded by tall sunflowers and colorful flower beds, and just awaiting for electricity to be fully functional. He hopes to have everything up and ready for the school’s open house Sept. 27.

The entire school is very excited, Harvey said.

“Every class wants to use it,” Harvey said.

And every class that wants to use it will get to use it.

The greenhouse can be used by any class for virtually any subject, Harvey said, but he plans on using it mostly for math lessons. He’ll use the greenhouse to simulate a business, conducting lessons like working with a budget and working with measurements and temperatures.

Harvey’s even coined a name for the greenhouse and its helpers: Green Thumb Productions.

A few students from Harvey’s class last year helped during the summer to get things set up. Response was so good when he first started setting up the greenhouse last spring that he had a long line of kids waiting to give him a hand.

Students Kameron Olenslager, Keenan Olenslager, Ben Davidson, Colton Gable, Billy Kelly and Sean Sutton helped so much this summer that Harvey has given them the title of “master gardeners.”

“Kids are just passionate. They want to help. They want to be involved,” Harvey said.

Boy Scout Justin Jacobson built shelves for the students to use in the greenhouse to help earn his Eagle Scout badge.

Harvey hopes to grow plants and flowers this year to sell for Mother’s Day weekend in May. The money earned will go to funding the greenhouse.

Many area businesses and citizens donated money and materials to the project. Harvey even got $500 from a woman visiting from California who overheard him discussing the project while eating at a Coeur d’Alene restaurant. She wrote him a $250 check that night, then donated another $250 after she came back to the area for a visit and saw how well the project was going.

A plaque outside the greenhouse honors Harvey for his work with the greenhouse, thanking him “for cultivating minds, planting the seeds of knowledge and growing curiosity.”

Parents’ efforts pay off, in lockers

Hayden Meadows isn’t the only school benefiting from people’s generosity. Parents at Dalton Elementary raised nearly $12,000 during the spring and summer to buy 90 lockers. The school already had about 150 installed, but they were located away from the primary grades hall so kindergartners were having to walk to the older students’ hall to get to their locker, Principal Kathy Liverman said.

Not many elementary schools have them, but Liverman said parents and teachers had said for a long time that as long as they have lockers, they should at least have enough so students don’t have to trek through the school to get to them.

“We have incredible PTA members at this school and last year they just kind of took the bull by the horns so to speak,” Liverman said. About 30 parents and teachers spent an entire Saturday in August setting the lockers up.

They should be ready to use by Sept. 18, Liverman said. The school will likely hold a small ceremony that day to celebrate them.

“It’s been a big thing in our school,” she said. “It’s pretty incredible that parents are donating that kind of money and that time.”

Grant pays Bryan playfield improvements

Bryan Elementary recently received a $5,000 grant from Albertsons to pay for the resurfacing of the Bryan Playfield

Two former Bryan students who now work for Albertsons told the school about the grant last spring. A paving company paved the basketball courts last week, and Principal Joel Palmer is organizing a work party today for parents, teachers and students to help repair the playground equipment. Bleacher seats need to be repaired or replaced, and things like the swings and teeter-totters need a fresh coat of paint.