Sunrise Rotary Paving the Path to Success! And, Ridgway's School Garden.
The Ridgway School in Santa Rosa is a continuation high school, and many of the students face difficult challenges. Thanks to Curtis Short, a retired landscape architect, there is a beautiful garden in the middle of campus where students can have a nice place to have lunch or relax and also participate in gardening. Rotarians from Santa Rosa Sunrise, in collaboration with Sebastopol Sunrise, have helped enhance the garden with previous work parties to install picnic benches and build planter boxes that are now filled with thriving plants.
This past Saturday, the garden area got an accessibility upgrade. Previously, the gravel walkway and picnic area were difficult to access with wheelchairs or other assistive devices. Rotarians upgraded the gravel area to a new crushed granite surface that is more firm and easier for all to access. This project will allow more students to access and enjoy the garden.
To accomplish the task, the new material had to be moved from a big pile to the garden area using shovels and wheelbarrows, then spread evenly with rakes, then compacted with a vibrating plate compactor from the rental place. It looks great and is much more solid than the previous gravel surface.
While on-site, Rotarians also helped prepare a different area to become an extension of the pumpkin patch. This required removal of some very hearty crabgrass and the previously installed plastic "weed control" barrier (which was clearly not working!) We made a lot of progress, but there is still more preparation work to do - perhaps a future work party!
Many thanks to the following participants from Santa Rosa Sunrise Rotary: Warren Smith, Cindy Gillespie, Leroy Carlenzoli, Dan Rosaschi, Olin Leasher, Mattew Crooks, Harry Coffey, Paul O'Rear, Peter Hoberg and friend Doug Lewis, and the following participants from Sebastopol Sunrise Rotary: Bill Sauber and David Mark Raymond.
