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Students, parents go green
  
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Verdugo Woodlands Elementary School participates in Clean and Beautiful Glendale Week.
By Angela Hokanson
The color green has always had a place at Verdugo Woodlands Elementary School — the school’s colors are green and gold — but green has taken on a new meaning on campus this spring, with the launch of several environmentally friendly projects.
Parents at the school established a “Go Green Team” earlier this year, and under the leadership of parent Karen Miller, the group has planted a vegetable garden at the school and is collecting used sneakers to be turned into rubberized playground surfaces, among other projects.
On Monday, the greening efforts continued as the school teamed with the city’s Neighborhood Services Department to plant flowers as part of Clean and Beautiful Glendale Week, which began on Sunday and continues through Friday.
“It’s just a labor of love,” Miller said about her involvement in the Go Green projects. “You love and adore the school, you’d just do anything for it.”
Each year during Clean and Beautiful Glendale Week, the city partners with local elementary schools, as well as interested business and civic groups, to work on beautification projects suited to the needs of those groups, said Jaixen Webb, a program specialist with Neighborhood Services.
“Beautification projects always enhance the look of the area,” Webb said.
Verdugo Woodlands requested flowers to brighten up the front entrance of the school, and drought-tolerant plants to put in a patch of land toward the back of the school, Webb said.
Webb delivered the plants Monday morning, and a class of kindergartners set to work planting orange, yellow and pink zinnias by the school’s front entrance.
The students took turns loosening the soil and gently placing individual flowers in their new dirt home.
“It was fun but I had to dig a really big hole,” said Jordan Fuller, 6.
After the kindergartners returned to class, parents planned to plant drought-tolerant plants like lavender and primrose — also donations from the city — in the back of the school.
Monday was also the first day in the school’s weeklong collection of used sneakers, another Go Green initiative. Verdugo Woodlands is helping families donate old sneakers to Nike’s Reuse-a-Shoe program, which turns old shoes into athletic surfaces like playgrounds and tennis courts.
The sneaker initiative is a way to demonstrate to students how useful things can be created out of recycled materials, Miller said.
“You want something visual for the kids to understand,” she said.
Earlier this spring, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, rosemary and other plants took root in the school’s new vegetable garden. Hopefully, the fresh vegetables will make their way into the school cafeteria, Miller said. And for the past month, the school has gotten students directly involved in recycling by placing recycling bins in every classroom and showing students how to separate recyclables from nonrecyclables.
“I just think it’s really important to show and educate kids at a young age about how fragile and important our planet is,” said Launa Penza, the school’s PTA president, who was planting on Monday.
ANGELA HOKANSON covers education. She may be reached at (818) 637-3238 or by e-mail at angelahokanson@latimes.com.
Parents at the school established a “Go Green Team” earlier this year, and under the leadership of parent Karen Miller, the group has planted a vegetable garden at the school and is collecting used sneakers to be turned into rubberized playground surfaces, among other projects.
On Monday, the greening efforts continued as the school teamed with the city’s Neighborhood Services Department to plant flowers as part of Clean and Beautiful Glendale Week, which began on Sunday and continues through Friday.
“It’s just a labor of love,” Miller said about her involvement in the Go Green projects. “You love and adore the school, you’d just do anything for it.”
Each year during Clean and Beautiful Glendale Week, the city partners with local elementary schools, as well as interested business and civic groups, to work on beautification projects suited to the needs of those groups, said Jaixen Webb, a program specialist with Neighborhood Services.
“Beautification projects always enhance the look of the area,” Webb said.
Verdugo Woodlands requested flowers to brighten up the front entrance of the school, and drought-tolerant plants to put in a patch of land toward the back of the school, Webb said.
Webb delivered the plants Monday morning, and a class of kindergartners set to work planting orange, yellow and pink zinnias by the school’s front entrance.
The students took turns loosening the soil and gently placing individual flowers in their new dirt home.
“It was fun but I had to dig a really big hole,” said Jordan Fuller, 6.
After the kindergartners returned to class, parents planned to plant drought-tolerant plants like lavender and primrose — also donations from the city — in the back of the school.
Monday was also the first day in the school’s weeklong collection of used sneakers, another Go Green initiative. Verdugo Woodlands is helping families donate old sneakers to Nike’s Reuse-a-Shoe program, which turns old shoes into athletic surfaces like playgrounds and tennis courts.
The sneaker initiative is a way to demonstrate to students how useful things can be created out of recycled materials, Miller said.
“You want something visual for the kids to understand,” she said.
Earlier this spring, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, rosemary and other plants took root in the school’s new vegetable garden. Hopefully, the fresh vegetables will make their way into the school cafeteria, Miller said. And for the past month, the school has gotten students directly involved in recycling by placing recycling bins in every classroom and showing students how to separate recyclables from nonrecyclables.
“I just think it’s really important to show and educate kids at a young age about how fragile and important our planet is,” said Launa Penza, the school’s PTA president, who was planting on Monday.
ANGELA HOKANSON covers education. She may be reached at (818) 637-3238 or by e-mail at angelahokanson@latimes.com.
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