School gets a new garden with some help from the people at Lowe's.
Piscataway Regional Day School aide Jeanette Torres helps students plant shrubs and flowers in the school's new garden.PISCATAWAY -- When Piscataway Regional Day School -- a school for students age 3 to 21 with multiple disabilities --decided a sensory garden and farm-to-table program would benefit its students, staff members reached out to Lowe's.
The response from the home improvement and appliance chain store, which employs students through the school's Community-Based Instruction program, was overwhelming.
Recently, more than 100 Lowe's employees spent five days landscaping the school's exterior. The improvements they made include a sensory garden, vegetable and flower garden beds placed at varying heights to accommodate those in wheelchairs, a patio with park benches and a wheelchair-friendly benchless picnic table, flowering shrubs, and assorted annual and perennial flowers.
The project was also designed to require minimal maintenance; soaker hoses were put in place for irrigation and grout lines were filled with patio cement to prevent weeds from sprouting.
Many PRDS students helped with the work; they dug holes, helped with the planting and in the process honed their gardening skills.
"We now have an exterior that is both beautiful to look at, and works for educational purposes as well," said Mark J. Finkelstein, superintendent of schools.
To submit school news send an email to middlesex@starledger.com.