SOUTH PORTLAND – With the help of a $2,000 Heroes grant from Lowe’s home improvement stores, parents, staff and students spent Friday beautifying the grounds at Brown Elementary School, on Highland Avenue in South Portland.

John O’Connor, a Lowe’s employee and Brown School parent, built a sandbox and a pergola to cover a new outdoor dining area, while also lining up aid from other area businesses, including Blue Rock of Maine, CKC Landscaping, CMP Stone Masonry and Grondin Sand & Gravel.

Volunteers, including Lowe’s employees, also stained picnic tables, planted an arborvitae hedge along the fence separating the school’s playground from Broadway, and created two new gardens at the front of the school.

“We recently formed a Greening Committee to do further work on expanding our vegetable garden and greening our school grounds,” said Julie Rothrock. “The generosity of Lowe’s and our Brown School community has been a big step in that direction.”

The school planted its first vegetable garden two years ago and last year held its first “harvest table,” at which students sampled the food they planted, tended and picked.

Brown Elementary sends a “Thank you” to Lowe’s with Alice, Jane, and Helen Bonnevie-Rothrock in front of the school fence and Meredith Comeau and Heather Kelly behind it.
Brown school moms Linda McDevitt and Gracie Johnston plant the flower bed in front of the school.
Hope and Teddy LeBlanc weed a front garden at Brown Elementary.
Brown Elementary first-grade teacher Susan Dixon stains picnic tables alongside Kim Banister, Julia Brahms, Makinzy Nielsen, Teddy LeBlanc, and Jackson Dolliver.