Community Workday

Join us for a community workday. 

Saturday, October 30, 2021 (rain date Sunday)

Hartsbrook community of all ages! You are invited to a work day on Saturday, October 30, 2021, working 9am-1pm, with optional picnic, playing, and singing at Groff Park afterwards. 

Below are more details about the work see last bulletin for sign up. 

Work Day 9am-noon (or shifts of 9-10:30am and 10:30am-noon)

Projects

Project leaders

• Noah Kahn, parent, Board member, Campus Committee chair
• Leslie Ritchie-Dunham, alum parent, Buildings & Grounds Manager, Campus Committee

Painting the storage container. The school will provide paint, brushes and tools needed.

Leveling the ground around the EC Kiosk (This needs to be done before winter). This includes helping to move logs into place, taking out the rose bushes, putting in fill. The school will provide materials and fill, which needs to be worked in and spread around after the logs are in place.

Taking care of the school sign. Taking out the Spirea in front of the entrance sign and doing some minor repairs on the sign itself and perhaps the mailbox as well. The spirea is the plant growing in front of the sign on both sides, which has grown and gotten too large. The other plants would stay in place. A thought is to replace it with flowering ground cover that would never grow up above the bottom of the sign. Natalie is looking into ideas for this.

Sweep out and tidy the animal barns. Eliminating cobwebs and some general tidying while not really moving anything or disturbing the animals.

Forest Kindergarten needs. The Forest classroom is currently working on table making for the children led by a parent in the class. The finishing work could be done at the same time as this work day, in community. The other project is one that Christa (teacher) has spoken with Leslie about regarding play yard set up near the EC buildings for the Forest when they need to come up from the woods in low temps or other weather related issues. This includes cleaning out a garden bed and securing some parts of an existing wooden structure. 

What to bring?

Have with you

• Water, snacks/lunch
• Hats, warm layers, work gloves
• Mask (in case)

Costumes

If it would be fun for you to work in costume, please do! We could parade around campus to view all our projects when we’re done!

Lawn games!

Croquet, badminton, Yardzee, kickball, basketball… If children aren’t content working alongside their parents, one adult could supervise some structured playtime for a break. 

Covid protocol

Please continue to adhere to the school’s health and safety guidelines during class social gatherings, with and without their teachers. Please meet outdoors and refer to our guidelines on masking and distancing, especially when eating and drinking. The goal is to be mindful of making these gatherings as safe as possible to mitigate the risk of infection and to protect yourself and others.

Musings on volunteerism

In the community of an independent school where tuition is collected, how do caretakers want to engage? With the campus grounds, fields, and forests? In organized, well-planned ways? How can we nurture not only support of our school, but of each other beyond the school campus and schedule?

In beloved community,

Jennie Abbingsole, Lisa Chodos & Brennan Smith
Family Association coordinators fta@hartsbrook.org 
https://www.hartsbrook.org/families/ 
https://www.hartsbrook.org/families/the-hartsbrook-school-handbook/