Starting September 26th through 30th, Sustainability Club will be organizing a Plant Drive for an opportunity to earn community service or NHS hours. Plants can be dropped off during lunch hours at the lunch table under the staircase, or in room S231. 

Donors may bring either the perennial species of choice, or plants from the following list: Purple cone flowers, Buckeyes Susans, Butterfly milkweed, Shasta Daisy, Hostas, Columbine, Phlox, Pincushion and Monarda. Additionally, students have the chance to earn service hours for helping to plant the donations on October 3rd afterschool. (bring gardening gloves) The plants collected from the Plant Drive will be used to rejuvenate the South Courtyard’s appearance. 

 Sustainability Club’s sponsor Mr. Corcoran –an Environmental Science teacher at Carl Sandburg High School– and his club’s members envisioned the garden to be utilized as a relaxing space during down time for the students of the school.

 Last year, the Sustainability Club obtained a grant from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources called the Schoolyard Habitat Grant which allowed them to do a pollinator garden or a natural area. According to Mr. Corcoran, the additional ecological benefits accompanying the pollinator garden project include a space for “specific species of flowers that produce, you know, lots of nectar for the pollinators like monarchs or whatever, who are having a struggle right now with habitat loss”. 

Jessica Lee, a senior at Sandburg has been in Sustainability Club since her freshman year, and says that “We first just had an idea of a Zen garden in the courtyard and actually seeing it come into place with the plant drive and everything is really cool to see.”

 However, Sustainability club has no plans to stop with the South Courtyard; Mr. Corcoran says that “more of that space could be utilized.” He hopes that Sustainability Club will “continue to enhance it for, you know, a Zen Garden, and then it should be a space that kids get to use, during their home rooms or study halls.”