MISSON PARTNER FEATURE

Thanking Henkel & our volunteer groups for their commitment to supporting our students.

After a great start to our school year, Sunshine School has had the opportunity to partner with Henkel and other groups to make improvements to our playground and outdoor garden areas. Improving our playground offers different activities for students to engage in while playing outside with their friends. With grant funds from Henkel and volunteer work, children can now enjoy their time around the sensory walk, music wall, sandboxes, and the lovely garden just around the corner.

Our sensory walk was designed and installed by students from Helen Tyson Middle School EAST group, who previously helped with our Art Feeds Mural. The sensory walk is now along the sidewalk leading to our garden and includes fun, sensory activities like “spin” and “skip” to engage the students while outside. These now 8th grade students have worked on projects for Sunshine School since 6th grade, and we hope they continue bringing joy to our students with bringing exciting projects to our school.

Funding also gave us the chance to install a music wall in our playground with Eagle Scout Simone Pisciotta working hard to install the different elements of this wall. Using items such as whisks and drumsticks, students make all sorts sounds on painted buckets, pots, cans, and other mounted items. Our students now get to enjoy making an ensemble of sounds with this addition to the playground.

If these additions were not enough, our playgrounds also have new sandboxes. Volunteers from Walmart finished adding the sand, as well as helping with different organization and sanitation around in the kitchens, classrooms, and therapy areas. Each time our classes go outside, many students like to dig and play with toys in the sand.

We also have improvements outside of our playground. Sunshine School aims to keep the exterior of our building clean and welcoming and we appreciate our volunteers from Mars Inc. trimming back plants and weeds to help maintain our landscaping and garden. We thank them for offering their time to do this dedicated work.

We are very thankful Henkel and our other volunteer groups for providing the time and resources to make these improvements a reality. With partnerships and support such as these, Sunshine School can thrive and add new, innovative activities for children while maintaining cleanliness for our staff, students, families, and other clients.