Despite the cool weather, The Everett’s annual Fall Green & Clean Day on Saturday, October 18^th came off without a hitch. 35 volunteers from UBS in partnership with Boston Cares (B.C.) Bernadette Smith at the helm & volunteer Rob Guptill, along with Everett staff members Alyce Collins, Mark Walter and Dianna Wilson all came together to complete numerous projects. With funding from B.C. and UBS, our major project was to build an additional raised stone garden bed, using the same materials as the two existing beds. Led by Everett science specialist Mark Walter & B.C.’s Rob Guptill, UBS volunteers began by digging a 20x4 foot trench, backfilling it with a ton and a half of ground stone - shovelful by shovelful - and then painstakingly working to level the area before laying the interlocking stones. The resulting bed was mostly completed, although several of the finishing stones were missing, before it was filled with plant trimmings, dirt and compost.

 A substantial group of intrepid volunteers built 20 classroom bookcases from scratch, using hand tools and wood, before priming and painting most of them. The next group rebuilt the berm below the dawn redwood tree and filled it with several hundred bulbs, donated in part by parent Sarah Heffernan. Meanwhile, resident artist Liz Carney worked with a friend to grout the newest mosaics to grace the schoolyard. The colorful birds, created by last year’s 5^th graders as their legacy project, are located on the inside of the pillars next to the blue entrance archway. Speaking of color, another group, including a couple of UBS daughters, repainted the kickball diamond, and then, acting on a suggestion from B.C.’s Bernadette Smith, painted the low wall at the edge of the blacktop. Using imagination and playfulness, these new murals transform an ordinary space into art.

Nate, the teenage son of a UBS employee, stepped right up to the challenge of planting a little pagoda dogwood tree in the front near Ms. Flannery’s redbud tree. He then put in a pieris japonica, also known as the lily of the valley bush, next to the blue archway previously mentioned. [We expect that Andrew Breck, a partner from the Boston Nature Center, will be planting red emperor tulips with some Everett students all around this new shrub. These tulips will become part of the Journey North, a “large experiment (in which) students across the Northern Hemisphere track the growth of the same plant as the season changes from winter to spring.”] Finally, our arborist of the day planted a baby mimosa tree, donated by former BPS parent Laura Gang, in the stump of the horse chestnut tree that used to be near the play equipment. Another gentleman did an awesome job of trimming back the mulberry and aspen trees flanking the front walkway.Yet another group, using woodchips donated by Mike’s Trees, shovels and a wheelbarrow, spread these chips in the area under the chess tables, near Ms. Flannery’s bench, and along the low beds opposite the kickball diamond. A group led by Everett librarian Dianna Wilson tackled some of the most difficult tasks by working to remove the copious amounts of brush and trash scattered around the edges of the schoolyard, a byproduct of the removal of the old chain link fence completely surrounding the campus. This is in preparation for the installation of the new Flannery Fence. [The decorative archway and poetry fence in the front of the school, made possible through a grant from the Edward Ingersoll Browne Trust Fund, and also designed by Liz Carney, is now complete.] Dianna’s group then proceeded to roll 4 or 5 gigantic ailanthus logs off the hillside to be ready for use in our proposed new outdoor classroom. The group completed their stint by planting flowers from the Boston Natural Areas Network perennial exchange all over the hillside above the play equipment. Whenever I am working at the schoolyard, parents come by with their children and ask if they can still come to the park. It really makes me happy to see that the Edward Everett Elementary Schoolyard Garden has truly become the urban oasis it was intended to be. Last year, UBS was also our volunteer partner for the annual Green and Clean Day, and many people returned for round two. Often volunteers just moved right into the next job when their first task was completed, lending a hand wherever needed and truly embodying the volunteer spirit. I thank them and congratulate them for being true Friends of the Edward Everett Schoolyard.