Contact: Marti Stewart

Office: 612-767-1500

Email: Martistewart@clws.org

Waldorf School installs rain garden in south Minneapolis neighborhood

Minneapolis, November 2009- City of Lakes Waldorf School (CLWS) has installed an educational rain garden this fall on its campus in south Minneapolis. The Minneapolis private school is one of few elementary schools to create and install a rain garden, which is the first of its kind in the Whittier neighborhood.

The rain garden is made possible in part by a $50,000 grant from Mississippi Watershed Management Organization. City of Lakes Waldorf School contracted with Barr Engineering and Three Seeds. Inc., both located in Minneapolis, to design, build and install the garden, which is scheduled to open Spring 2010. City of Lakes also worked with Rona Holdt of Rona Holdt Landscape Design, Minneapolis, on the original plant design.

The CLWS rain garden is central to the school’s core mission: inspiring and educating children to develop qualities of reverence, respect and responsibility for others and for the natural world.

“All children learn by observing and interacting with the world around them,” said Marti Stewart, administrator of CLWS. “The installation of the rain garden is a visible demonstration of our commitment to environmental stewardship and sets an important example for our students while enhancing the beauty of the neighborhood and increasing green space on our campus.”

In addition, the rain garden will enhance school curriculum and allow for sensory, interactive and interpretive programming, thereby providing a natural learning environment for the preschool to 8^th grade students in areas such as botany, geometry, invertebrate and environmental studies. The CLWS rain garden will be open to the public during non-school hours.

Rain gardens are native plant gardens that are designed to aesthetically improve properties, while reducing the amount of storm water runoff (and accompanying pollutants) from entering area streams, lakes and rivers. Polluted storm water runoff is a big problem in urban areas where much of the ground is covered with hard surfaces such as roofs, streets, parking lots and sidewalks. Barr Engineering has designed a green space that will contain and filter water from the school’s roof and parking lot that would otherwise flow onto city streets and into the Mississippi Watershed, thereby eliminating approximately 60 percent of the runoff from the impervious surfaces.

The 5,000-square-foot rain garden will replace paved surfaces on the campus with mixed native plantings of flowering perennials, grasses and shrubs all geared toward increasing the wildlife and habitat of the school yard.

Creating a life-long love of learning, Waldorf education blends the humanities and sciences with art, world languages, music and nature. A balanced curriculum meets the changing needs of the growing child and fosters independent thinking and creativity. In 1999, true to its founding mission to provide Waldorf education in an urban environment, CLWS purchased and moved to its current location on the corner of W. 24^th Street and Nicollet Ave. in Minneapolis. Since the purchase, CLWS has made yearly improvements to the gardens and landscaping on the Nicollet and W. 24^th Street sides of the campus. Minneapolis Blooms has honored CLWS landscaping on several occasions.

The MWMO provides for the long-term management of its water and associated land resources through the development and implementation of projects, programs, and policies that respect ecosystem principles and reflect changing community values. The MWMO assists and cooperates with member cities, other units of government, non-profit agencies, and a variety of groups in managing its water resources to achieve this vision.

To learn more about City of Lakes Waldorf School, visit www.clws.org or call Enrollment Coordinator, Susan Sophocleus at 612-767-1502 to schedule a tour.

To learn more about creating your own rain garden visit Minneapolis.

City of Lakes Waldorf School rain garden photos are available below.

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