Several staff members, students and their families came together last Saturday to participate in Southwest Elementary School’s Clean and Green Earth Day event at the school.
The event was postponed one week after the storms that rolled through the area on April 22.
Fifth grade students planted a tree out in front of the school and another tree was planted in honor or Terry Zimmerman, a fifth grade teacher at Southwest who is retiring at the end of the school year.
Participants also helped to pick up trash, pull weeds and plant day lilies in front of the school.

Southwest has also started a new garden, and staff members, students and families worked on it all morning. They installed eight raised beds, added soil and mulch to the beds and the garden around them, and planted marigolds, vegetables and strawberries.
There was a make-and-take seed planting station, as well as a propagation station (with lemon sedum and hellebore) that the students could take home. There was also a garden-themed cozy library rest station, with books and blankets for the students to enjoy outside.
“Our Earth Day celebration was a huge success and our amazing volunteers exceeded expectations,” said Sarabeth Lewis, the media coordinator at Southwest.

“Our vision for the garden is an inquiry-based community experience that will focus on the arts and science, technology, engineering and math (STEAM). The idea started with two third grade students, Emerald and Charlotte, after we read an NCCBA-nominated book called ‘The Boy Who Grew a Forest: The True Story of Jadav Payeng’ by Sophia Gholz.
The students and their classmates described their vision to a team of stakeholders, and Saturday, their dreams became a reality.
A huge shoutout to Frank Blum Construction for donating time, funding, and materials to make our project a success.”