Scott Swanson
Some stormy fall weather did little to deter Hawthorne School fifth-graders who spent half a day Thursday, Nov. 7, cleaning up the Sweet Home Veterans Memorial in preparation for this week’s veteran’s celebrations.
As rain poured down Thursday morning, 25 children carefully spread bark around bushes that they had just planted in the memorial, located between the sidewalk and the highway in front of Hoys Hardware, 3014 Main St.
City Manager Craig Martin said the Beautification Committee took over the renovation and development of the memorial, which was founded in 2004, last year. The memorial was the brainchild and a regular project for local historian and longtime businesswoman Corky Lowen.
It includes bricks bearing veterans’ names, a sign and plants, including many planted last week by the children.
Arlene Paschen of the Beautification Committee said Green Thumb Nursery, east of Lebanon, provided a variety of bushes and shrubs that were planted. She said the owner of Green Thumb Nursery designed the landscaping and provided the plants at a discount.
“They are drought-tolerant, low-maintenance, and hopefully will have color throughout the year,” Paschen said. “That’s what we’re striving for. So it will look nice. The plants are little but they are going to grow.”
Sponsorship bricks are available by contacting the City Manager’s Office at (541) 367- 8969.
Martin said the Hawthorne fifth-graders, whose teacher is his wife Willa, and sixth-graders taught by Mike Long, have agreed to provide ongoing care and upkeep of the facility as part of the school’s community service efforts.
“We had been talking about community, what it is to be part of a community,” Willa Martin said. “I told them they might have an opportunity to do a community project sometime during the year and when it came time to learn about Veterans Day and I told them we had an opportunity to go down and help, they were pretty excited, to say the least.”
The downpours that hit Sweet Home Thursday morning didn’t slow them down, she said.
“These kids are from Oregon, they know rain. They can handle this,” Martin said. “We made some impromptu rain gear and walked down from the school.”
Clad in plastic bags, the students worked for several hours on the project, supervised by Beatification Committee members Alice Grovom, Patty Holk, Phylllis Osborn-Smith, Vivian Chelstad and Paschen. Also helping out as volunteers were three veterans, John Lee, Donald Paschen and Jerry Smith, and others.
Students who worked on the project included Dakota Adams, Jaren Adams, Ryeleigh Adams, Shawna Bunting, Starla Davis, Justin Graber, Dallas Hutchins, Markus Jones, Angel Klanke, Hollie Johnson, Jerusalen Jimenez-Ramon, Ona Kopperud, Travis Mack, Shaelin Nichols, Austin Oar, Laura O’Bryant, Oscar Ortiz, Tatiana Patricio, Denae Pennington, Kara Peterson, Melanie Potter, Bret Schuster, Kenny Storms, Ryan Victor and Emily Windom.
STUDENTS show off the flags they received from veterans. When the work was done, the veterans presented each child with an American flag, Willa Martin said, and Emily and Hollie handed out Hawthorne Hornets Pride bumper stickers to the adult volunteers.
The youngsters made it back to Hawthorne in time for the weekly Pride Assembly.
“They all carried their flags into the assembly and they made quite an impression on the rest of the school,” Martin said. “They were pretty excited about it.”