Trillium Charter School

Rooftop Garden Initiative

Let's Garden in the Sky:

The Trillium Rooftop Garden Initiative

Trillium Charter School is happy to announce that the rooftop garden is almost here! The school is developing age appropriate curriculum that will be ready to incorporate into the following year's lesson plans. We would like to thank all of the Trillium students who have been so helpful throughout the process, especially our 2009 Spring shop class, our AmeriCorps volunteer Dana McLees and Edible Skylines, LLC for providing project management and securing over $10,000 worth of materials and donations. Of course none of this could have happened without Arianne Newton, our Garden Educator and Community Development Coordinator.

Three years ago Trillium Charter School was lucky enough to move locations from our previously inhabited building into a building we now own on 5420 N. Interstate Ave. Unfortunately, the new building does not have grounds for a traditional garden and the school's previous garden has proven difficult to incorporate into daily lessons. Staying in line with garden-based education, the Trillium Rooftop Garden Initiative began two and a half years ago in order to retrofit the new building to accommodate a sustainable rooftop garden.

Many partners have been involved along the way including Mosi Architecture, DCI Engineers, Reimers and Jolivette, Edible Skylines LLC and PSU capstone students. The building has since gone through a remodel involving a structural and seismic upgrade, reroofing, installation of a commercial kitchen and elevator lift. Mosi Architecture was responsible for designing the building to accommodate the rooftop garden and for steering the project through the city permit process. DCI Engineers was responsible for making sure the building could handle the weight of the garden. Reimers and Jolivette was responsible for construction of the remodel and Edible Skylines was responsible for project management, grant writing, design of the edible green roof and installation of the rooftop garden. Edible Skylines worked with PSU capstone students and Trillium shop class students in the construction of the raised beds and will be involved with continuous maintenance.

We have had many community partners along the way as well. Thanks goes out to Phillip Soil Products for the edible green roof soil donation, to the Bureau of Environmental Services for awarding us the Ecoroof Incentives grant which is allowing us to move forward with the purchasing of materials, to Columbia Green Technologies Inc. who is providing a green roof modular system at half price, to Anderson Roofing for donating the Lightguard pavers we have incorporated onto the rooftop, to PSU's Engineering Department which performed an energy analysis of incorporating a green roof onto our school's rooftop, to The Rebuilding Center for the donation of lumber for the raised beds, to the multiple hardware stores who have agreed to donate drainage and hardware components, to Snyder Roofing for the generous guardrail donation and to the many Trillium families who have given time and resources to this project. We couldn't have done it without everyone's help and now there is something to show for it. We look forward to seeing you next year on the rooftop!

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