Beacon Academy High Schoolers Install Rain Garden
by Kristin Maiorano
May 16, 2010
One local high schooler is using a school project as a way to give back to the environment, and to a local nursing home. She credits her charter school for giving her the opportunity. “Not everybody gets an opportunity to get out there and work with things that they actually want to work on,” said Chezni Knight, a junior at the Beacon Academy. “It’s not all out of textbooks. Like I got to take a whole day out of school to come here and play in the rain and dig and plant flowers.”
Knight’s project did more than just add to the landscape at the Regency Place nursing home in Lafayette. She and her classmates put together a rain garden, designed to minimize the runoff into our water system when it rains.
Knight had been working with the Tippecanoe County Soil and Water Conservation District for months. “A lot of planning,” she said. “I think I first contacted them back in February, when we really picked out a project, and we’ve just been working on it since. Things really started getting tighter around April and everything kind of came together last week, and we picked a date and pulled through.”
“A rain garden is a detention of six to eight inches, where water can flow off of concrete or roof and into the basin and the water naturally soaks into the ground, therefore alleviating the amount of water that goes into ditches or the storm sewer,” said Dan Dunten, with the Tippecanoe County Soil and Water Conservation District. “And this is just one example of a way you can actually put a rain garden together.”
Dunten has been working with Knight to design and put together her rain garden. “It’s been a great working relationship with these young adults,” he said. “They’ve done a fantastic job today and we’ve really enjoyed working with them.” Beyond helping the environment and brightening up the scenery at Regency Place, Knight said she and her classmates enjoyed themselves. “I enjoyed it,” she said. “I think they did too. It was a little rainy this morning, but the sun came out and it brightened up a lot.” And she said, she hopes other high school students learn from what she’s doing. “I would love to think I’m setting an example for other people my age, cause we’re paying it forward,” she said.
If you’re interested in learning more about rain gardens, Dan Dunten with the Soil and Water conservation district is holding a rain garden workshop.