Butterflies will flock to Oldsmar Elementary for the new flowers in a courtyard garden.
That's the idea behind a project last week made possible by a $500 grant and donations of plants, garden materials and volunteers from Oldsmar's Wal-Mart Supercenter.
"It's a great community partnership that we have with Wal-Mart," said Lisa Alchin, Oldsmar Elementary's community involvement assistant.
Exceptional student education teacher Cortney King has been working with students to improve a courtyard vegetable garden next to his classroom. The plants were growing but had yielded few vegetables. The lack of bees and other pollinators was holding up production, so King planted some flowers last year hoping to draw a few winged insects.
Recently, he applied for an environmental education grant at Wal-Mart so the school could plant more butterfly plants. The $500 grant was the starting point for Wal-Mart's help.
Last week, Brian Vora, Karla Crabtree, Fetz Fetzer and Jason Schlau, employees of Wal-Mart, brought the check, plants and gardening materials. Then they joined in with students in King's classes and Terri Mullin's exceptional student education classes to plant, weed and water.
Fetzer, the Wal-Mart garden center manager, looked over the garden when the day's work was done.
"It looks good, yeah," he said. "I'm going to have to give them some more stuff, though."
Cow manure topped the list.
"If he put some of that in there, these things would go crazy," he said.
