Harllee Middle School
Once again we paired up with Brenda Smoak and Krista McCampbell to create a beautiful Peace Garden on the Harllee campus. Harllee is an engineering technology magnet school in Manatee County. Brenda guided the students in creating a mural of their school mascot while Krista helped them create mosaic top benches for the garden. Dave and Lisa worked along side the students creating their pond-free water feature. To complete the garden everyone worked together planting native Florida plants around the water feature.
Harllee Peace Garden
The dedicated students were amazing. These kids worked together even voting on which rocks were to be placed in the waterfall and where they wanted each plant to be placed. Some of the students acted as journalist interviewing the others and creating a 25+’ banner with quotes from the those involved. The entire project was filmed by one of the technology students. A ribbon cutting ceremony was held with performances by the Dance Team, Drumline and JROTC. To view more pictures of this project click on: Harllee Middle School Gallery
Backyard Getaway recently completed a joint project with National VSA teaching artist fellows, Brenda Smoak & krista McCampbell.We worked with a variety of students from Oak Park and Lakeview Elementary Schools to build an AWG colorfalls waterfall on each campus, paint an existing bridge that the students use daily to traverse a ravine, create decorative mosaics and a meditative garden space at Oak Park. The goal of the MetLife grant is to involve students who are disabled with students who are not in a joint art project to build community. Brenda’s project was chosen because it meets these community-building goals while teaching math and science skills in the process. This grant also allowed over 400 students from these two schools to attend two performances at the Van Wezel.
Lakeview
This is a national grant from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. Sarasota was selected to be one of 7 cities nationwide to participate in MetLife’s grant. We are honored to be working through the Van Wezel Performing Arts Center along side local artisan Brenda Smoak and Krista McCampbell. We will involve students at Oak Park and Lakeview Elementary Schools in building a waterfall on each campus, painting an existing bridge that the students use daily to traverse a ravine, and creating a meditative garden space at Oak Park. The goal of the MetLife grant is to involve students who are disabled with students who are not in a joint art project to build community. Brenda’s project was chosen because it meets these community-building goals as well as teaching math and science skills in the process. Over 300 students will attend two performances at the Van Wezel during this residency.
2011: Haile Middle School: Learning Takes Flight Project
Haile Middle School project
Learning Takes Flight
We work with young people and adults with and without disabilities to create a water feature and garden on site. There is even built in fundraising sources to help fund your art & nature project. To learn more please contact us
Read about our project on the following links:
Three local women work together for Haile Project