Every year The Gardeners has a plant sale to raise money for the GCA Scholarship Fund and this May was no different. When we couldn’t force any more plants on our membership, Liz Mercoliano, Barbara Geltosky and Connie Stelzenmuller packed up their cars with the remaining plants and delivered them to Lankenau High School in Roxborough. Why did we pick that school? You may have read about the vandalism perpetrated on the gardens at Lankenau High School several months ago. Read what I took off their website:
Many of you covered the story of the damage and devastation at Lankenau Environmental Science Magnet High School last week. We genuinely appreciate your help in raising awareness of our vandalism. We need your help again. On the nights of February 15th and 16th vandals destroyed the grounds of Lankenau High School. Our school grounds were destroyed by vehicles, uprooting most of our grass, all of our gardens and creating significant track divots all through the property. This action has taken a toll on our staff, students, and neighboring community. Over the past five years, our school has put time into building gardens and other floral arrangements around the property.
The vehicle that tore up their gardens went over a steep embankment to get to the garden site. Today there is a fence across that embankment to discourage this kind of nuisance from happening again.
Connie arrived later with her delivery of plants while Liz and Barbara were given a tour of the repaired site by Matt Wahl one of the teachers. Later we all met the Botany instructor Jennifer Rambo. A few of the Botany students helped unload our cars–Kinnie Brown, Xzavier Edwards, Tymire Khalid, Jeffery Anderson–and we were thanked by their principal for the donation. Click on the webpage title below to learn more about this magnet school and their students–impressive.
Below is a photo of some of the vandalism from the vehicle that tore up the garden. The other photo is of Liz looking over one of the many raised gardens at the school.
JUN