Lowe’s Donates Memory Garden to Special Needs School

FORT MYERS, Fla. - Oct. 24, 2013 - PRLog -- About fifteen Lowe’s Heroes came out to the Goodwill L.I.F.E. Academy Saturday, October 19 to donate their time, supplies and talent for the L.I.F.E. Academy Memory Garden. The school, which is for students with developmental disabilities, is located at the Goodwill Opportunity Center (5100 Tice Street).

“The students have been asking for a garden for years,” says L.I.F.E. Academy principal Lynn Pottorf. “Now that we have our own building, we can finally give it to them.” The school recently moved from a leased location to its permanent home at the Opportunity Center.

The Memory Garden features a stone path accessible for students with wheelchairs and three Hong Kong Orchid trees- each one representing Travis, Alexis, and Laura, students the school has lost. The stones were painted by family and friends of the deceased students.

“Travis would have loved this,” says Becky Watt, whose son, Travis, died shortly after he graduated in 2012. “Travis went to the school for two and a half years, and if he was here now, he’d be right in the middle of this, planting trees and getting dirty.”

The volunteers, from Fort Myers stores 582 (Gladiolus and US 41) and 2221 (Colonial and Dani Drive), along with a few students and the parents of the students whom the garden is in memory of also put up trellis with climbing jasmine, set up a vegetable and herb garden, planted fruit trees, added mulch and decorative shrubs, hibiscus and desert roses.

“It’s about helping the community and being part of our community” says Lisa Padilla, Lowe’s commercial pro specialist. “The vegetable and herb garden is a sustainable garden. The students will plant their own vegetables and herbs, and they’ll gain a life skill, plus it enhances their self-esteem because of the pride of creating and growing something on their own.”

The Lowe’s Heroes pick one service project a year to help improve the community.

“Lowe’s really went above and beyond,” says Pottorf. “I can’t wait to see the looks on the students faces when they get here Monday morning.”

The Goodwill L.I.F.E. Academy is a tuition-free, open-enrollment Lee County charter school.  The school’s curriculum is designed to promote self-advocacy and develop life skills for independent living, by focusing on academic skills, daily life skills and vocational/workforce skills. For more information about the Goodwill L.I.F.E. Academy, please visit the school’s website at www.GoodwillLIFEAcademy.org or call Principal Lynn Pottorf at (239) 334-4434.