Eight years ago, ROTC cadets at Towers High built raised garden beds at the DeKalb County school, and the group has been tending them ever since. They’re the ones who figure out what will be planted, weed, mulch and harvest. The experience prepared them to take the project to a new level.
“We may be the only ROTC unit in DeKalb that has a garden, and we’re always looking to improve what we’re doing,” said Lt. Col. Ryan Calloway, a senior aerospace instructor who leads the cadets.
The unit now has the chance to improve in a big way and to share their work with the school community. The gardens recently received a massive makeover that included a compost bin, outdoor classroom space with a dry erase board and a pollinator garden for bees, hummingbirds and butterflies.
The upgrade was part of a School Crashers project paid for by the Duluth-based Georgia United Credit Union, founded in the 1950s as the DeKalb County Teachers Federal Credit Union. Liz Riffert, GUCU’s community development officer, oversees the program that provides funding to schools anywhere in Georgia.
“This is our ninth year of helping K-12 schools across the state,” she said. “This year, we’ll have awarded grants to 63 schools for a total of around $1.7 million.”
In February, Towers ROTC leaders submitted a proposal for the garden makeover at the same time the school’s advisors asked for help sprucing up their student facilities. Both won School Crasher grants adding up to $70,000 – a record high for the program. And the funds came with volunteers who made most of the changes on a recent Saturday morning.
“We had volunteers from GUCU as well as the school community,” said Riffert. “We even had members from the DeKalb school board there laying landscaping.”
Riffert said the program usually draws about 250 applications each February. After site visits, the list is pared down to about a dozen. Along with funding for the gardens, Towers also received a counseling and career center makeover with new furniture, flooring and paint.
“School Crashers came about from seeing a need and hearing from teachers in the credit union,” said Riffert. “We heard about projects they’d like to see that aren’t covered by SPLOST funding. We don’t focus on anything considered a capital project; it’s more about a dream or vision a teacher or principal has for something in their school that they can’t do with their budget.”
Calloway said the transformation School Crashers made will enhance the entire school.
“One of the goals is to collaborate with other departments like science, math and culinary arts,” he said. “Culinary will use what we grow in their cooking classes. Science and math can use the garden area and the outdoor classroom. And it all looks amazing.”
Information on School Crashers is online at gucu.org. Details about Towers high are at towershs.dekalb.k12.ga.us.
SEND US YOUR STORIES. Each week we look at programs, projects and successful endeavors at area schools, from pre-K to grad school. To suggest a story, contact H.M. Cauley at hm_cauley@yahoo.com or 770-744-3042.
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