On Saturday, October 3, 2009, 47 Hands On Atlanta (HOA) volunteers and 57 dedicated parents, teachers, and students from Wadsworth Magnet School for High Achievers spent the morning and early afternoon landscaping the eight and half-acre campus as part of a multi-phase campus improvement plan. Wadsworth was one of the project sites selected for the organization’s annual Great Day of Service. The application and preparation process was a year-long effort spearheaded by Dr. Cornelia Crum, the Wadsworth principal. Having submitted an application for the project in August 2008, Dr. Crum learned of Wadsworth selection just before the project’s initiation.
Scenes from Wadsworth Elementary’s beautification day . . .
When asked what she enjoys most about HOA school projects, Regina Dobson, a Hands On Atlanta Volunteer Project Coordinator and 16-year HOA volunteer said she “likes working with schools because it gives the children an opportunity to see the value of hard work, to get their hands dirty, and to know that parents, students, and even strangers will donate time to beautify their schools. It makes them proud.”
On the day of Wadsworth campus beautification, Dr. Crum and several parents arrived as early as 6 AM. As with other HOA landscaping projects, many organizations donated landscaping supplies and tools. Georgia Power donated more than thirty bales of pine straw and two truckloads of mulch. Hands on Atlanta supplied plants, pine straw, tools, and refreshments. Wadsworth rented additional tools from Atlanta Community Tool Bank, a local non-profit agency that loans tools for community service projects. Additionally, Wadsworth parents donated plants, supplies, and gift cards from local home improvement stores.
Volunteers from the sub-metering company ista North America chose to work with HOA on Wadsworth’s campus beautification as their corporate project. Working collectively, all the volunteers planted varieties of drought-tolerant plants around the campus, pulled weeds, trimmed shrubs and grass around the faculty parking lot, and spread mounds of mulch along the right side of the school building.
The school’s courtyard also received new pine straw and much-needed hedge pruning. The courtyard features different plant species of which the school’s science teachers regularly integrate into their lesson plans. The courtyard also houses an aquatic pond, tomato and squash gardens; and it is likely that the work done there matches in the labor of love completed around the exterior of the school thanks to the HOA and Wadsworth volunteers on that special day.
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