Nearly three dozen volunteers from the Avon community assembled on a grassy stretch of lawn near the elementary school early Saturday morning. By the time they left about five hours later, they’d built 12 raised garden beds that teachers will use to create more meaningful lessons for Avon’s students for years to come.
The gardens were the brainchild of Elementary School Principal Rob Lupisella, who pitched the idea to Tom Vonglis, president of Avon’s Rotary Club chapter.
“I worked with Rob and others in the club to come up with the plan on how we would go about building the beds and laying them out within the area we had to work with,” Vonglis explained. “To make all of this happen I needed to employ the right people to help with all the different aspects of the project. This included ground preparation work, material acquisition, timelines for when to get things done, things like that. This all came together because we had a good plan and did a lot of prep work ahead of time.”
Lupisella said he was excited about the Avon Rotary Club’s “incredible gift,” which he said will provide innovative learning experiences for students and give them opportunities to learn how to grow, harvest and prepare a variety of fruits and vegetables.
“The school has set aside time this summer so the teaching staff can work on developing curriculum for the coming school year,” he said. “The elementary science standards have a strong emphasis on plants, and how their external parts help them to survive in the environment. Learning about different types of vegetables, helping them to grow and thrive, and of course consuming the fruits of our labor will all be a part of this experience for the children.”
In addition to the Rotary Club chapter, Lupisella said Avon also partnered with Cornell Cooperative Extension on the development and construction of the garden “and will lean heavily on them for support as we design the curriculum and work with the children in the garden.
Among the volunteers who helped build the garden beds this past weekend were Rotarians, Interact Club members and community volunteers. A handful of local businesses also helped make the project possible by giving in-kind donations or charging discounted rates.
“Peter Vonglis and his son, Colin, of Vonglis Enterprises, LLC - they were responsible for all the site prep and we also used Peter's shop as our location for storing all the lumber ahead of time and cutting everything to length,” said Tom Vonglis, the Rotary chapter president. “Avon Lumber donated some materials, Al Landscape gave us a break on the sand and compost we purchased from them and Steve Morsh from Morsh Pipeline gave us a nice break on the topsoil we used. We had miscellaneous donations from other people within the Rotary Club itself.”
Photos courtesy of Tom Vonglis
Volunteers built 12 raised garden beds near the Avon Elementary School on Saturday, May 14. Avon teachers will use the beds in the coming years to help create innovative learning experiences for students.