The Gardens of St. Anthony

The grounds around St. Anthony are quite beautiful. It was the first school yard greening project in the City of Ottawa back when John Dorner was the principal.

Ann Coffey, one of the original designers of the beautiful greened area in the yard writes,  “the quiet natural “island” was also to be used as an outdoor classroom. Two years after we removed the asphalt from that area and planted the trees, we did a plant ID. There were 210 species of plants, and many of them were “volunteer” wildflowers. We had all four species of goldenrods found in natural areas in Eastern Ontario, and we hadn’t planted any of them. It was really lovely there – full of the sounds of crickets and birds…”

The area is still beautiful, but it is really time for a renewal of the original project. Working with our school board, Ann Coffey, Andrew Harvey of the Evergreen Foundation and especially the students, staff and parents of the St. Anthony community, we plan on revitalizing the gardens of St. Anthony.

 

 

Some areas really need some weeding, but even in these areas we were able to find native plants like milkweed which are very good for attracting butterflies.  Other plants like the hostas in the back gardens are thriving with the shade from the central island of trees.

I think the most exciting part of this new project will not be the new trees and plants we bring into our yard, it will be the collaborative spirit that will bring all of us together to come up with a new plan that involves our students, staff and parents.  In my experience, that will build the spirit we will need to maintain our new gardens in the years to come.

I hope our wider community becomes involved in this project. The trees and gardens of St. Anthony can offer a great deal to the greening of the entire community.

Let’s make this an island of natural health and beauty in our neighbourhood.

 

New Programs for September

Summer is the best time to start setting up programs for the year.  It is wonderful to actually have the time to do some work that I hope will benefit the whole school during the upcoming year.

We are starting with a new program called Fun 2 Run!

 

 Fun2Run Program

Michael Stashin and the Healthy Active Living and Obesity (HALO) research group at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario are developing the Fun2Run non-competitive running program for elementary school children grades four through six.

We met with the two people who will be running the program.  They are both wonderful and the program looks fantastic!  Michael Stashin is a running instructor who is doing amazing things including running to the North Pole.  Here is a video showing some of the work he is doing.

 

What is impossible2Possible (i2P)? from GOi2P on Vimeo.

We also met Sophia Rosa who is a health communication consultant working with CHEO.

As you can see there is a connection to a program called impossible2possible which looks amazing and perfect for our school.

Next week we are starting with a runner’s workshop with Mike.  It will be great to see how this program works with our kids in the fall.  The plan is to train all the juniors throughout the fall in running techniques then to hold a running adventure for the students to finish off the program.

Any program that motivates people to move from the impossible to the possible has wonderful potential for our school!

More information to come!  Maybe see you next week?