HUL cleans up at Los Padillas
A long overdue clean-up day at Los Padillas Elementary School in Albuquerque’s far south valley was scheduled for the school’s unique onsite five-acre outdoor classroom and wetlands.
“Heads Up wants to be more involved with the USGBC-NM and the community. The school needed volunteer experts. It was a perfect fit for everyone,” said Heads Up designer Aaron Zahm.
On April 14th, more than a dozen employees and family members from Heads Up joined about 40 other volunteers for a day of pruning, weeding, clearing and plain hard work.
“We cleared the walking trails, pulled weeds, removed invasive trees, and pruned,” said Aaron. Richard Perce, a Heads Up project manager, pulled on waders and tackled the tangles of dead vegetation that choked the pond. He was christened “The Swamp Thing” for his efforts and nobody wanted to sit near him at lunch, but the pond emerged renewed, ready for the returning birds and other wildlife that call it home each summer.
“Everything was just transformed,” said Los Padillas school principal Sara Keeney. “Heads Up did a wonderful job. We needed experts and they came right in and did what was needed.”
“The wildlife sanctuary is a wild and very special place to our students,” said Sara. “It’s not a designed or contrived space. But it needed some serious maintenance. All of our volunteers, and especially Heads Up, worked very hard. Now the entire site looks great.”
Along with the Heads Up folks, volunteers at the clean-up day included parents, elementary school students, young volunteers from the Albuquerque Institute of Mathematics and Science charter school, and members of the American Society of Landscape Architects.
“This sort of sustainable project is precisely the kind of work Heads Up wants to pursue,” said Aaron. “The constructed wetlands at Los Padillas is proof that a sustainable solution to a real-world problem can result in a valuable learning resource for the community. It has provided so many benefits to the students and to everyone involved.” |
