Grade 8 and 9 students from Marshall School were working hard this past week preparing a community park they've established for winter.
The park, which lies along the south side of the community of Marshall, currently features rows of spruce, beds of trees and shrubs beside the community skate park, and a stream bed lined with rocks and plants. Students under the direction of teacher Cindy McKerchar were busy edging, mulching and planting more trees and shrubs.
The concept of students working to build a community park came about last year.
"Teacher Michael Horgan expressed a desire to establish a service education class for grade 7 here at Marshall School," said Principal Colin Covey.
"We thought that this would be a good way to get the students involved in a positive way with the community and build a good relationship between the school and the town. The students came up with the idea of building a community garden last year."
Covey explains the initial plans drawn up were huge, but after some second thought they scaled it down and began to look at ways to fund it.
"They had to go through the funding process, and then they began to look at what types of trees and shrubs would work well in our environment - low maintenance, self-sustaining and attractive. Last year in the spring the money began to come in and they built five raised beds and filled them with flowers donated by Greenjay," said Covey.
"Summer came and Michael left us, and teacher Cindy McKerchar and I went out to the park," said Covey. "There was still funding in place, and we saw potential. We thought that with the funds that we had left over we could expand the initial project. We wanted to give the town a vision of what the park could look like. Cindy drew up plans for an expansion, and we put things into high gear. She did a lot of legwork, phoning companies and getting donations and also our vice-principal Trish Markevich helped a lot in the summer."
"It's important," said McKerchar, "when you're planting small trees to be able to see what the park will look like in 40 years."
"Once we started working people just kept showing up to help," noted Covey, "Glenn Hay, Gary Christian, the ladies from the store and other community members. We never dreamed we'd get that much support and the positive vibe we've been getting from the people in the community about the school has just been so nice. We still have the service ed class and we plan to let the grade 8 class keep the project for the next two years and then pass it on when they reach grade 10."
"Getting Cindy on board has been great," said Covey, "she has great ideas and excellent gardening and landscaping skills."
"The concept is to eventually create a 5 km long park," said McKerchar, "and I believe that the key is to open the park up to the community as something that they can actively use and share in their daily lives as opposed to building something to just look at."
"What we envision," she said, gesturing at the western horizon, "is a berry corner over there with fruit trees and shrubs that people can use, come the fall; then a running track and loop system that will run through here and along the park linking up with the Terry Fox running route for the many, many people in town who run and jog. We hope to place an antique wagon on one side of the skate park, and we're in the process of building a gazebo for picnics for this side. It will be a long-term commitment by the students and the school."
Student Austin Laughren agreed. "I think it's good for the community," he said. "It gives people a place to be."
"The people and businesses who've donated plants, materials, time and labour have been just wonderful," said both McKerchar and Covey. "All of us, the students and staff of Marshall School would like to thank everyone for their participation in this project. With their help, our dream is becoming a reality."
