Peace Garden adds beauty
Article content
Our Lady of Fatima School added a little extra beauty and peace to its playground with the introduction of the newly finished Dunnigan Peace Garden.
“The Peace Park adds beauty to our playground and it’s just sort of a nice quiet place to sit, and to hang out with your friends and to read,” said Rachel Fody, an Our Lady of Fatima School Grade 5 student. “Just a nice quiet space.”
“This is just part of that journey of trying to build a nice, safe, risk-free place at Our Lady of Fatima so that we can continue to grow the best citizens that we can,” said Our Lady of Fatima School’s Terry Dunnigan to the students gathered in the Peace Garden for the official opening – complete with ribbon-cutting – and blessing by Father Slawomir Szwagrzyk Tuesday morning. “This Peace Park becomes a visible example – it’s creation by students, staff and parents in fulfilling our board theme this year which is ‘Discover the joy of our faith.’”
Major contributors to the Dunnigan Peace Garden were Great Lakes Excavating (Ted Stockmans), Scott’s Canada, the Meyer family, St. Williams Forestry Ecological Centre, and Ren VanLeeuwen.
“I think it’s a place where people can go for some peace and quiet, to reflect on what they’ve been doing,” said Grade 5 Fatima student Jayden King. “Where they can talk to their friends, and just hang out, and have somewhere to go in the shade. In the summer it kind of gets hot out here.”
Within the Peace Garden are two park benches, and a range of indigenous plant life.
“I think it represents the green growing in our school,” said King, nodding toward the young plant life. “It’s kind of in the shape of a circle – that means like our school’s love never ends. And there’s no plants in the centre, so it’s kind of like a wreath.”
Fody and King were not familiar with each individual planting – and there is a wide variety – but they were comfortable with the idea of a garden.
“I think it’s to represent that God gave us each and everyone of us,” said King. “That’s why there’s so many species of plants. And when they grow tall, it’ll be like a pathway into life to get into the inside.”
There were also 10 trees recently planted at the school.
“I think ‘Nature’s Gifts’ sums it all up,” said King.
The Dunnigan Peace Garden had been planned for about the past year, but it came to fruition in the last two or three months, said Ronda Meyer, who helped coordinate Tuesday’s event.
“We wanted to get it done before the end of the school year,” she said.