By Jennifer De Freitas, Daycare Matters Editor
English Montreal School Board employees now have a green space at the head office where they can take a few moments to appreciate and reflect on the environment.
Community Services – Daycare Division inaugurated the beautified atrium on May 18, which marks Daycare Appreciation Day, with the cutting of a green ribbon. The atrium’s green space includes plants, flowers, herbs and vegetables.
The atrium’s working title is: Le Jardin. Daycare Services is looking for sponsors, and is also launching a contest in search of an official name for the atrium.
“The focus of the Atrium Beautification Project is to create a nature-rich space for all EMSB employees to enjoy,” said Daycare Manager Rosa Fuoco. “We also want to show the environmental consciousness being cultivated in our daycares.”
In January, Daycare Services adopted a green plan in accordance with the EMSB’s green policy, which was adopted last June and will be implemented over the course of a five-year board and school plan of action.
“Rosa Fuoco and her team have done far more than simply pencil a date in the calendar,” said Robert Stocker, EMSB Director General. “Instead, they have invested many hours of hard work in totally transforming our atrium and at the same time, complying with our green plan,” continued Mr. Stocker.
Daycare Services hasn’t only planted a garden at the school board, it has also been operating a Green Club in six of its daycares with the help of Daycare Green Initiative Advisor Maddie Guerlain.
Guerlain manages the Green Club at: Dante in St. Léonard, East Hill and Leonardo Da Vinci Academy in RDP, Fraser Academy in St. Laurent, John Caboto in Ahuntsic, and St. Monica in NDG. The majority of these daycares participated in beautifying the atrium.
ATRIUM ART: NURTURE YOUR RELATIONSHIPS
Eleven daycares collaborated on the artwork that represents this year’s Daycare Week theme: Nurture Your Relationships, and that is displayed in the atrium. Sylvia Garland is the artistic creator behind the large-scale 3D art installation, which is symbolic of the partnerships that are formed and nourished in all of the EMSB’s 29 daycares.
“We wanted to create empty frames suspended from the ceiling to show the intangible links that binds our relationships in daycare,” said Garland. The frames include activities students get to enjoy in daycare, such as animation, photography, film-making, abstract art, music and journalism.
Garland, who likes to refer to herself as a “builder” rather than an artist, also had the children make pottery, lanterns and wind chimes to grace Le Jardin.
Garland first collaborated with the EMSB on a project with Edward Murphy Elementary School in February 2008.
In 2009, Garland made a giant Oscar statue with Fraser Academy Daycare students and a series of smaller Oscar statues with Michelangelo Daycare students for the Daycare Red Carpet Film Festival.
For last year’s Daycare Week theme: Partners Yet Different, Garland designed a gigantic puzzle that all 29 daycares got to colour.
This year, she helped St. Dorothy Daycare students make a gigantic picture frame for it. The puzzle and the picture frame are now displayed outside of Rosa Fuoco’s office at the school board.
Here is a list of the artwork that was made, and the daycares who made it:
Pottery – Honore Mercier and Cedarcrest
Lanterns – East Hill
Elements – Fraser Academy and Pierre De Coubertin
Sculptures – Parkdale and Dante
Bamboo Frames – Pierre Elliott Trudeau
Wind Chimes – Coronation
Gigantic Picture Frame – St. Dorothy
Smaller Picture Frames – John Caboto
