By Courtney Kreutzbender-Hanson

Grand Meadow Schools

Students from the Grand Meadow School District participated in a district wide Service Learning Day on Friday, May 4.  Service learning is a way of teaching and learning that engages all learners in hands-on projects in the community to meet learning objectives and mutually benefit both the student as well as strengthen communities. Some of the students were assigned to assist Southern Minnesota Education Consortium, SMEC, with their clean-up day at the consortium’s new building site.

This site is located on the intersection of Interstate 90 and Highway 56 and will house a level 4 program, an ALC, and administrative offices that will serve the Alden-Conger, Glenville-Emmons, Grand Meadow, Kingsland, LeRoy-Ostrander, Lyle and Southland school students and districts.  SMEC staff and volunteers have been working over the past year to clean up the old farmstead.  They have removed multiple out buildings and have filled numerous dumpsters full of garbage and tires.  This entire cleanup process needs to be completed before SMEC can begin development of their new building on the site.

Grand Meadow High School students and staff worked to clean a 10-acre property just off Interstate 90 along Highway 56 on May 4. Photos provided

During the Service Learning Day Grand Meadow high schoolers and staff worked on removing fencing, clearing lumber,  and picking up debris on the nearly 10 acre property.  The crew removed over half of the fencing, filled a 30 yard dumpster, demolished an old school house, and cleared the majority of the trash from the yard.  All the students did an amazing job and the building site looks amazing. SMEC administration and staff would like to thank the follow volunteers that helped to make our May clean-up day one of the best ones yet:

• Grand Meadow students, staff, and administration for their time and labor,

• SEMA Equipment, Travis Warmka at J&S Repair, and the Swanek family for the use of the skid steer loaders,

• Dan & Linda Armagost for their time and labor,

• Dennis & Peggy Boik for preparing lunch.

Each day we get closer to our end goal of a new facility and we could not have come this far without the support all of you.  Thank you.