Garden Committee Meeting | Tuesday, February 2nd

First, the Skyview PTA would like to express our deep gratitude for YOU. The Harmony Garden is almost a reality and we are over-the-moon about the financial support it has received this year. Thank you to everyone who has helped finance the first phase of this beautiful project. A special thank you to the Exchange Club of Lake Highlands, Moss Haven Elementary PTA, Town Creek Neighborhood Association and Forest Meadow Neighborhood Association. We wouldn't be here without you.

The ground-breaking for the Skyview Harmony Garden is scheduled for the weekend of April 15th and 16th. That means we have a little under 3 months until our BIG dream is a BIG reality. Some of you who are reading this have attended one or both of our fall committee meetings and others of you have simply said, "count me in" when the time comes. Well, the time has come!

Please join us at our next meeting on February 2, 2016 from 6:30-8pm. The meeting will be held at the home of Sarah Greenman, Skyview's PTA president. We will be serving refreshments and hors d'oeuvres and discussing action items. Get ready to mobilize! RSVP by email to skyviewgarden@gmail.com and Sarah will send you her address with more information about the meeting. This is going to be a ton of fun and we cannot wait to work with you!

Harmony Garden Ground Breaking | Save the Date

Tubano Drums for the Skyview Harmony Garden

Here is our first set of instruments for the Skyview Harmony Garden! This purchase was made possible by donations from YOU via "Donor's Choose". Thank you to our music teacher, Mr. Aeschbacher for organizing the purchase of the Tubano Drums! We'll have more to announce in the coming weeks, but until then take a look at our colorful Tubano Drums!

An letter from Skyview's music teacher, Mr. Austin Aeschbacher:

Thank you all for your generous donations to this Outdoor Harmony Garden project. We are still in the early stages of development for our garden, but these tubano drums were the first leap of many in ensuring that this garden will impact all of my students to come. We are looking forward to a ground-breaking ceremony in April of this year, and we hope to enjoy the fruits of our labor in the Fall of 2016. 

With these tubano drums, our students are already thrilled and excited about what the future holds for their school, and I cannot wait for the chance and opportunity to reach students in a whole new classroom environment. I am certain that when these drums will be a show piece for everyone at Skyview to perform and make beautiful harmonies in the outdoor communal space.

With gratitude,
Mr. Aeschbacher

Volunteer for the 2015-16 Garden Committee

School is back in session and it's time to assemble the new Skyview Harmony Garden Committee! Many of you have expressed a desire to help manifest Skyview's musical outdoor learning environment and we're ready to dig in!

The committee will meet once a month through the fall as we finalize plans with the district, secure our renewable water source, solicit donations and fundraise. We want everything to be ready by April 2016 for our official ground breaking. Please come be a part of this exciting development. Join the Harmony Garden Committee, collaborate with your neighbors and help your neighborhood school BLOOM!

If you're interested in being a part of the Harmony Garden Committee at Skyivew, please send an email to Sarah Greenman, the committee chair, at skyviewgarden@gmail.com or reach out via Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skyviewharmonygarden.

 Thank you and we look forward to hearing from you!

Community Partners | Exchange Club of Lake Highlands

Today Skyview's principal, Ingrid Dodd, and PTA President-Elect, Sarah Greenman, accepted a grant of $4,000 on behalf of the Skyview Harmony Garden. The Exchange Club of Lake Highlands is a local service organization dedicated to youth, community service and citizenship programs. Their generous contribution to the overall budget of the Skyview Harmony Garden is an exciting development for the Skyview Outdoor Learning Environment (OLE). The Exchange Club will also be with us for the ground-breaking (loosely scheduled for September of 2015) contributing volunteer hours in the garden. We're so grateful for the Exchange Club's support and ongoing participation.

Additionally, the Exchange Club honored two star Skyview students during their awards breakfast. Both recipients, Kevin and Valery, were chosen due to their academic success, leadership and spirit of excellence. Here are some photos from the awards breakfast.

Principal Dodd and Valery

Principal Dodd and Kevin's Mother

Sarah Greenman and Brent Basden

Slow & Steady

It goes without saying that building a garden from the ground up is a lot of work. But building a school garden from the ground up requires even more. Right now, our school garden project is in the planning stages. Our Outdoor Learning Environment proposal has received wonderful support from the community and from the school district representatives assisting us along the way. However, codes, compliance, zoning, permits, plans, budgets and more must all be attended to before we start building.

The Skyview PTA wants you to know that we are currently in this long and very important part of the process. Taking our time to carefully plan and fund the garden is key to creating a lasting impact. Financial and human capital must be in place before we take a shovel to the proposed garden space. Thank you for your ongoing support as we walk through this process step by step.

Remember there are lots of way that you can help. Financial donations are happily accepted, but even more than that, we want your participation. When the garden is fully approved by the district, we'll need bodies and brains to help us install the garden in phases and maintain the space once it's in place. As you look ahead to your fall calendar, please consider setting aside some volunteer hours at the Skyview Harmony Garden. There will be lots of rewarding opportunities to pitch in.

Stay tuned!

Dream Big | The Proposed Garden Layout

To view a larger version of the layout, please click on the image.

The French poet and journalist, Anatole France, once wrote, "To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe." With funding efforts for the Skyview Harmony Garden well under way, it's time to look at the garden itself and consider the shape it might take. Before our little dream can be approved by the school district, we must submit a proposed layout.

Today, Sarah Greenman (PTA Co-President and Garden Committee Chair), met with Curtis Scoggins (local landscape architect), to go over a proposed plan. After reviewing Greenman's design ideas, Scoggins drafted a beautiful plan that incorporates all of the proposed Outdoor Learning Environment (OLE) elements: vegetable garden, butterfly habitat, musical instrument installation area, shade structure, shed storage, rain collection system and compost area. Scoggins is the first of many community partners who are donating their time and expertise to the Skyview (OLE).

The proposed plan embodies our hope and intention for the Harmony Garden. We want the Skyview (OLE) to be a space that nourishes our students' sense of wonder and possibility. Gloria Steinem says, "Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning." Please join us in taking this imaginative leap. Great things lie ahead.

To support our efforts, please visit us at Donor's Choose.

You can also contact the Harmony Garden Committee at skyviewgarden@gmail.com

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