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All Aboard the 'Tim Bus'
Building project takes landscape architecture faculty, students to camp project sponsored by Tim Hortons Children's Foundation
A group of 25 landscape architecture students and five of their professors will become stonemasons for a day to build the foundation for a dedication garden at a Tim Hortons children's camp near Brantford.
This week, a corporate bus will collect the group from U of G for an overnight excursion to Onondaga Farms in St. George, one of five children's camps run in Canada by the Tim Hortons Children's Foundation. (A sixth camp is in Kentucky.)
The group will learn classic dry-stone wall techniques to build a wall and lay a 30-foot-wide patio. Eventually to be landscaped with trees and flowers, the site located near the camp entrance will serve as a donor recognition area.
"The Tim Hortons Children's Foundation is one of the biggest charitable organizations for children in Canada," says Prof. Nate Perkins, School of Environmental Design and Rural Development (SEDRD).
He will accompany the students along with Profs. Karen Landman, Sean Kelly, Maurice Nelischer and Lise Burcher.
Referring to the group of mostly undergraduate students expected to take part in the event Sept. 29 and 30, Perkins says: "The students are going to learn a little more beyond building a wall on this one. As professionals, we are expected to give something back."
SEDRD faculty members have designed plantings and landscape plans for Onondaga Farms, which opened in 2002. The 400-acre facility includes an eco-centre and observatory and attracts more than 500 disadvantaged resident campers and youth leadership participants each year for programs in environmental education, agriculture, astronomy, creative arts and recreation.