By MARY BAILEY The Reporter
Douglas High School recently received a grant from Blue Cross Blue Shield and now they have their first ever greenhouse on campus.
The eight-foot, 20x40 building is a dream come true for the school and its students.
Dr. Ann Siler, grant writer, wrote the grant last summer and it was immediately approved for $10,000.
“It’s just been a dream of ours,” Dr. Siler said. “We wanted to eventually tie in some extension centers with it and serve different departments in the school. We want the entire school to be able to use it.”
This is the third grant Dr. Siler has written and gotten approved for Douglas Schools through Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
Douglas High School Principal, Brian Sauls, says this greenhouse will provide their students at Douglas so many opportunities to learn and grow.
“This has kind of been Mr. Brock’s vision and what he wanted to have here at the school, and we just tried to support him. Dr. Siler helped to look and find some grants and was the one to get us approved,” Dr. Sauls said.
“Mr. Brock has done a great job with our Ag Program and FFA, our Career Tech Classes in general have been growing. So, we just want to do everything we could do support them and allow them to continue to grow their program. This is a huge help; it will allow them to open up more avenues as far as growing more things and adding the horticulture side to their classes.”
Dr. Sauls says the building itself is nicer than what he ever envisioned it would be.
“There are so many different things they could do with having a greenhouse here on campus that they could not do before. Especially how nice it is. This is just great for our kids to have more opportunity.”
Douglas FFA Instructor, Andrew Brock said some of the students from his class helped to build the greenhouse or what they are calling the new school’s conservation laboratory.
“It’s built like a pole barn,” Brock said of the building. “It’s built with steel trusses and clear plastic panels on the sides and the top. It also has three-foot metal siding around the bottom, just to make it more durable.”
Brock said this is really a collaboration of many departments and will serve all students.
“It’s a collaboration between our Ag Department, our Family Consumer Science Department and also our Science Department. We only really have one lab here at Douglas High School with over 700 students. Our Science Department needed more areas to do research and hand-on learning. And of course, our Ag Department has grown to well over 200 students here at the school and we really needed more facilities for our students as well.”
Douglas High School Senior and FFA President, Isaac Lee, was one of many students who spent his summer helping to build the new laboratory.
“Probably around middle of summer Mr. Brock asked me to come up here and help him a little bit. We put on all the roofing panels, and I put some of the side panels on in class since I aide for him,” Lee said. “I would think that we have needed a greenhouse for a long time now. Mr. Brock has wanted to start teaching more plants and how they grow and different things you can do to make them grow better.”
Lee is proud to leave behind such a legacy after he graduates.
“I think is a great idea to incorporate the whole school, not just Ag like the Science classes and things like that so they can come out here and learn about plants,” Lee continued.
“I think it’s not enough to teach in only classes now. Basic life lessons even. Leaving that legacy of having a greenhouse so Mr. Brock can come out here and really teach these kids not only about plants but about life lessons and how to grow things for themselves and not rely on the government or the economy.”
