Families beautify Manlius park entrance
Enders Road Elementary School’s “Little Hands, Big Plans” project was a big success.
About 120 people, including 34 Enders Road kindergarten students, their parents and some grandparents, spent about two hours after school on June 13 participating in the volunteer project, which included weeding, digging, planting and mulching near the entrance of Mill Run Park in the village of Manlius.
Bathed in sunshine, the 34 families tackled 10 areas near the park entrance, planting flowers and plants under trees and park signs. Parents used shovels to dig holes and pushed wheelbarrows brimming with dark mulch. Children filled buckets – sometimes as big as they were - with mulch and helped place flowers in the fresh prepped Earth.
“It’s a good way to give back to the community,” said Rob Burton, who was digging holes alongside his 5-year-old son Jackson, an Enders Road kindergarten student.
Students in teacher Diane Lewis’s morning and afternoon kindergarten classes wrote letters to town officials, outlining their ideas for beautifying the park, Mrs. Lewis said. The town granted the classes permission to work in the park, and the students collected 4,549 bottles and cans since January, using the proceeds to pay for supplies for the Mill Run Park beautification project.
During the school year, the students had taken field trips to the park as part of their classroom experiences. It was the students’ idea to beautify the park, Mrs. Lewis said.
“This is a place they know and love,” Mrs. Lewis said. Photo caption 1: Lily Lok helps her three-year-old daughter, Olivia Nocilly, plant flowers while her one-year-old son, Ethan Nocilly, watches the activity around them. Lok's six-year-old son Andrew Nocilly is a kindergarten student at Enders Road Elementary School. Photo caption 2: Mark Adamski, right, plants flowers under a tree. His five-year-old daughter Holly is a kindergarten student at Enders Road. On the left, Adam Brown helps his son Sawyer, who is a kindergarten student at Enders Road. Photo caption 3: Mark Ford helps his five-year-old daughter Charlotte carry a bucket of mulch. Charlotte is an Enders Road kindergarten student. Photo caption 4: Rob Burton digs holes for plants and flowers. His son Jackson is an Enders Road kindergarten student. Photo caption 5: Kindergarten student Bella Diana, 5, shovels some mulch. Photo caption 6: About 120 people took part in the Mill Run Park Beautification Project.
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