Community Involvement
Here is a growing list of donations we have made to schools and other projects that are useful and important for developing an awareness of water conservation, sustainability, community involvement and self sufficiency.
Rain Barrels in New Orleans
Aaron designed a rain diverter for The Edible Schoolyard at The Samuel J. Green Charter School New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. His challenge was to make a unit that plugged directly into an existing oversized drainage pipe to fill a rain barrel to be used for a nearby butterfly garden. He mailed his ingenious plug-in diverter with easy to follow instructions as a kit and with help from community organizers, families and students, the day was a complete success!
Anna Smith Sr. Project Geologist Kleinfelder East wrote:
Thank you again for your donation, you are truly helping a new generation of children to learn to be self-sufficient and end the grip of the poverty cycle. This school takes up a whole block and there are homes that face the school across the street, and this community has actually started harvesting their water from their gutters and is watering gardens with it. The school apparently does a “demo-day” on the second Saturday of every month and teaches the community about gardening and resources. Your rain barrel turned into a whole tutorial and the community went home and made their own!
Related News:
President Bush Visits Samuel J. Green Charter School
“Your rain barrel display was a big hit.” -Helen H. Childers - Festival of Flowers Director Mobile, Alabama.
The festival is a 5 day flower show featuring life sized gardens within 300,000 sq. ft of tents. Their special feature this year was green living display called the Frogmore estate that featured a vegetative roof, shredded newspaper insulation, north south site orientation for maximum sunlight effect, and recycled construction products and one of our oak rain barrels with a painted diverter to blend into the trim.
External Media:
Festival of Flowers 2008 Press Release