Green Schoolyard Project Update

Picture: Principal Matsuno and Garden Coordinator, Linda Myers, show Mayor Newsom the fish in our pond named in his honor.

Key Dates

May 17 - First Annual Garden Party - 11:0am - 3:00pm - join the fun of Sherman's Carnival and Garden Party on Saturday, May 17.  Come explore our tremendous green schoolyard on a student-led tour, participate in garden activities and enjoy lunch in our park setting.  Looking forward to seeing you there!
 

GSP Yahoo Group - get on the GSP bandwagon!

We have a Yahoo Group for Sherman Green Schoolyard business.  This group is the main communications tool for GSP business -- it allows committee members to join or leave the committee at their discretion, and have the option of reading the discussions without cluttering their email boxes.  To join the group, click here:  Sherman_Green_Schoolyard.  Documents / images / ... other items and links of interest will also be posted on the yahoo_groups website.  

Alternatively, feel free to contact GSP Chair, Regan Mahoney,  through this website - simply note Green Schoolyard on the Contact Form.
 

GSP Update from Green Schoolyard Committee Chair, Regan Mahoney

THE ROCK, THE RIVER, THE TREE

(The story of imagining, designing, creating and the gifting of the Sherman Elementary Water Element and Habitat)

In the beginning of this process, a seed of an idea was watered by our landscaper's design of a fountain and reflection pool which was in turn surrounded by a gifted necklace of solid granite boulders, headstones and pebbles.  

In all beginnings there are the basics and the basics to the landscape, any landscape, are the rock, the river and the tree.  In the human landscape, in particular the child's, it has become evident that ALL CHILDREN INDEED DESERVE A ROCK, A RIVER AND A TREE.

THUS, in the fossil of a rock, in the reflection of a river, in the root of a tree, the seed of a Sherman waterfall and habitat had begun to germinate. From Landscape Architect Jeffrey Miller's dreamscape design, the asphalt flat blacktop would be transformed to become a likeness of its former self.   We had pictured that perhaps Franklin Yard had once been a gentle rolling hill with a pasture creek as it had been described in historical accounts from the century's turn, that it had cradled cattle in its hollow (Cow Hollow).  We would revisit landscape history.

Estimated at $40,000 to complete, the water element posed financial hurdles which the Green Schoolyard Committee's fundraising efforts began to jump.  GSC member DANA HOLMES started the funding fire by helping to secure a $5,000 donation from PAUL BLICKMAN, Owner of 38* NORTH LATITUDE BUILDERS and supporter of Sherman's environmental and educational goals.  Further, one year from the unveiling of Miller and Comany's design, we were awarded very generous gifts from LOU TRUESDALE of AMERICAN SOIL AND STONE PRODUCTS in Richmond and from TOM BRESSAN, OWNER of URBAN FARMER STORES, San Francisco.  Lou gifted Hooker Creek granite boulders, headstones and Salmon Bay pebbles while Tom donated an energy efficient pond pump, filter and liner.  In doing so, American Soil and Stone Products and Urban Farmer Stores have, in tandem, generously enriched the educational lives of Sherman students and their physical, daily environment.

Community efforts and gifts continued to swell as the water element project was voted on, green-lighted and budgeted for only $10,000, while shouldering the remaining costs on broad-based donations.  To start, JEFF MILLER had agreed to charge one-half of the original installation cost and his creative and hard-working employees AARON and KYLA were also integral to the project.

Next to assist was JASON YEH OF TRUE VINE LANDSCAPE who had already contracted to build the granite Franklin Yard stairways.  Reducing his hourly rate in half, Jason assisted Jeff Miller in the technical water pump and filtration system installation as well as laying water line, drilling drain holes and placing large granite boulders.

ED McKEVITT of  BIG ED'S CRANE SERVICE, who has assisted Jeff Miller on several landscaping installations, responded to our news coverage by cutting his craning bill by more than 2/3.  He wanted to support the idea of 'greening' the schoolyards.

Irish brothers RICHARD and ED CRONIN donated discounts on labor and machine usage.  They scooped out the pond, broke up the asphalt and sculpted the fountain falls.

MARC LOREN, electrician and brother-in-law to Librarian Clare Watsky, generously donated his time and electrical expertise in creating an electrical box to service the pond pump.  We thank him for his generous support of our water element.

AMY, artist, green schoolyard supporter and wife to husband Jeff Miller, realized the need for publicity and wrote a press release regarding Sherman's community 'barn-raising', 'pond-building' event.  Her diligence was rewarded with three media responses.  Jeff Miller and Sherman student and parent volunteers appeared on both the Channel KTVU -2  6 and 10 o'clock news segments.  The SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER published an article on our efforts and SING TAO CHINESE NEWSPAPER reporter Kristen Choy interviewed teacher Jim Anderson and published an article and a teamwork photograph.

PRINCIPAL PHYLLIS MATSUNO facilitated and participated in the water element installation as well as NAN McGUIRE, Chair of San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance.  JIM ANDERSON and Librarian and GSP member CLARE WATSKY represented the teaching staff.   Parent volunteers included ART LEE, BILL WELSH, NAKIA KASHIMA, PABLO ROESCH, DAVID OWENS (IRISH), BRIAN CHASE, MEG CHASE, LILY FREDRICH, SCOTT MIGNOLA, JON DRAPER, PATTY MYERS, LIZA LICHTMACHER, DANIEL COX and DANA HOLMES.  Students REBECCA LEE, ALAN CHASE, DAKOTA DRAPER and DASHIELL MYERS-HOLMES assisted as well.  REBECCA BOARDMAN, Sherman Treasurer, aided in the project by keeping the bank open during summer hours.

Parent volunteer ART LEE supplied an entire Saturday picnic meal of cold cuts, potato salad, pickles and chips while outdoing even himself at the project's end with Rib Eye steaks for all volunteers!!!

The combined efforts of the San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance, the Sherman Green Schoolyard Committee, Principal Phyllis Matsuno, the Sherman teaching staff and students, the parent volunteers and the philanthropic and generous donors have made imagination a reality.  

SHERMAN STUDENTS MAY NOW GROW LIKE THEIR ROCK, THEIR RIVER AND THEIR TREE.

Linda  Myers
Water Element Project Coordinator
Garden Coordinator

Maya Angelou explores and reflects on the nature of the human landscape in her INAUGURAL POEM  of 1993 where she speaks of A Rock, A River, A Tree.

Inaugural Poem
Maya Angelou 
January 1993

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly,
forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
I will give you no more hiding place down here.
You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.
Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter.
The Rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.
Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.
Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,
Clad in peace and I will sing the song
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the stone were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.
The River sings and sings on.
There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.
Today, the first and last of every Tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the River.
Plant yourself beside me, here beside the River.
Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveler, has been paid for.
You, who gave me my first name, you
Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet, left me to the employment of
Other seekers--desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.
You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot ...
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought
Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.
Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am the Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.
I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours--your Passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.
Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.
Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.
The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.
Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.
 

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