Wow! Special Gardens is Truly Special!

What a community! What a town! Tomorrow we scheduled a work day to get all of our plants in the long bed in the courtyard. Brisbane resident – Maia Highsmith of Special Gardens (out of Redwood City) who has been consulting on the selection of our plants phoned last night, she wanted to know if we wanted a couple of her employees to come up today (Saturday 10/23) and prep the beds and plant the big stuff to give us a head start. (Humm...let me think about that.... YES!) To make a long story short they planted it all!

Maia picked out and up tons of plant matter she got most of the plants at cost for us, some of the plants were even donated! The results are amazing! When the pros come in they know how to do it right. As soon as the last plants went in the ground the rains started and gave the beds a drink. Thank you Maia and your team at Special Gardens for giving so generously to our school and community! This is what it is all about giving back and building community. Our project has been filled to the brim with goodness from people and businesses.

Don't worry folks....we are not done yet there will still be time to be part of this fantastic project. Once the last three U shaped benches are installed we will have some more opportunities to get our students and families planting.

The Sails are Up!

Two weekends ago Mike Glynn and team installed the very tall post to anchor our sails. This past weekend Danielle Kellstad, Roel Funke and I (Jacque) worked on the sail shades and they are finally up! Roel also installed a small bench over by the planter beds.

We have a couple more shades we are planning on installing, hopefully now that we are seasoned it won't take as long.

Our next task is to make the additional benches that will be install outside Ms. Longshore's class. We would love some lumber so if any one has a pile of (2 x 4) of redwood laying around that you don't need please let us know! The generosity from our community has been amazing. Keep it coming! Lipman is a treasure of a middle school and we want to make it the best it can be.

The Benches are in and they look Beautiful!

Today (Sunday) the benches went in!


Roel Funke has been working all week on some new benches for the courtyard. Each bench is 13 feet long. We got a fabulous donation from Sierra Point Lumber for the wood and hardware required to make these benches. Thank You Sierra Point Lumber!

Dan Sorentino and Roel Funke worked all day on the bench installation, the benches are rock solid and ready to go.

Eventually each bench will have a built in chess/checkers table that the students can play at during their lunch hour. A planter will be placed between them and the sail shades will be hovering above.

Thank you to Roel Funke for constructing the benches, Mike Glynn and his team for digging and setting the bench posts, Luc Bouchard for consulting on their design and to Dan Sorentino for his sound advice and assistance on design and installation! What a team.

We have three more sets of "U" shaped benches that will be placed along side the school in the gardens. If you want to help out just let me know! It's a big job.

Who is this Man?

Saturday's party not only brought out an alumni family, Gary and Chris Plank were out there all day helping us out! Thank you Gary and Chris! Also on the school grounds was none other than Brisbane resident Luc Bouchard. Luc has been a great help consulting on the benches, and helping sure up the railings, he has also graciously taken on the sail shade project with Danielle Kellstad.

Luc has no kids in the district he is just a good man who realizes good schools make for a good community! Thank you Luc!

Saturday August 15th Work Party Huge Success – Thank you Families and Mrs. Heckerman!

So much was accomplished this past Saturday. It's very exciting. Everyone worked so hard. We tilled one of the beds, fixed up the agapanthus bed, power washed around the trees, installed
the posts for the benches, measured for the sail shades, and much more.

To top it off we got our first Ping Pong table donated to the school! Thank you Montiel Family!

Thank you also to the Kristin, Wesley and Tommy Morris, Kathryn, Jay, Harry and Doug Gooding Patrick and Mike Glynn, Holly, Victor, and Nathan Rios, Danielle and Cami Kellstad, Luc Bouchard, Eric and Rosanna Wagner, Nancy Roeser, Darrien and Nancy Lacsamana, Mrs. Heckerman, Brenda Walker, Julia Deschamps, Gary and Chris Plank, Roel, Aidan and Ida Funke, and Linda Montiel for taking time out of their weekend to make our school a better place.

8th Grade Lipman Students Prime the Walls

Several 8th grade students came out to prime the newly constructed wall on the side of the portables (Thank you Mr. Campos).

Lipman Students Plant Courtyard Trees

The trees are in the ground thanks to some Lipman students who came out on Tuesday August 3rd, to plant and back fill the trees. The trees look great. Some parents came out to help as well and we couldn't have gotten the job complete without them. Thank you Noelle and Mike Abney, Roel Funke, and Nancy Lacsamana. This week is the big push to get more things done before school starts. Some benches are going in this Saturday, and hopefully some sail shades!

The Holes are Dug!

Three weeks till school starts and we are getting closer! This past week Mike Glynn and his team were out in the courtyard cutting through bedrock to get us our holes for our trees. It took a couple days but it all got done. Now we have all 8 holes in the courtyard ready for trees.

Much thanks to Mike Glynn his team and the whole Glynn family for this wonderful donation to our school. We really wouldn't have any holes at this point if we had all had to do this with our shovels and pic axes.

Rails and Caps

This weekend we had two busy mornings, painting the posts and securing the post caps to the boardwalk that runs in front of the portables.

On Saturday we had a small crew that came out to sand scrape and prime, on Sunday one of our entering 6th graders and his mom came out to support the project. We were able to get two coats of paint on and reassemble the railing.

The finished product looks great!




Next week we hope to get the trees ordered, holes dug and trees planted.

Other recent events in the project include the purchase of some sail shades that will eventually be installed at the end of the portables.