Thursday, June 21, 2007

Rail fence stolen from children's garden at Perry

by Carolyn Kaberline

Sometime between noon Monday, June 11, and Tuesday morning, June 12, someone stole approximately 150 feet of split rail fence on the east side of the Children’s Learning Garden located just north of Perry Elementary School.

“Whoever did this is stealing from the children of the community,” said Judy Chamberlain, principal of PES. “It’s really a shame that someone did this.”

Chamberlain said the fence had been erected on the north and east sides of the Learning Garden in October of 2006 by the Watch DOGS (Dads of Great Students) volunteer group.

Gretchen Byers, third-grade teacher at PES, said that although several of the fathers in the group work at Schmidt Lumber in Topeka and Lawrence and got a discount on the fencing materials, there was a lot of labor involved. “There were many donations of time and materials.”

“Some of the kids also helped put it up,” Chamberlain said. “They’ll be really disappointed that someone could do this.”

The Children’s Learning Garden itself is approximately two years old. According to Byers, the idea for the garden itself came from Pam Rees, who had worked with Denis Yoder, to create a garden containing native Kansas plants at Lecompton Elementary School.

The one at PES was created through an OWLS grant (Outdoor Wildlife Learning Site) along with matching grants from USD 343 and the PES PTO. In addition, Byers says that the city of Perry has been very supportive.

The Learning Garden currently is “a work in progress.” So far there have been plantings of buffalo grass, the addition of a walkway, and the fence.

“The goal is to have all native species of flowers, plants, and sumac,” Byers said. “We hope it will be an easy place to bring kids to work.” Byers says it is also hoped that the garden will be a friendly and inviting place for the city and community to visit as well as being an outdoor lab for students.

Plans call for benches and a pondless waterfall to be installed in the near future.

“Apparently it will have to be something that no one can mess up,” Byers said.