Campus Beautification
Located in the heart of downtown Hickory, Oakwood serves as a landmark within our community. Its campus is surrounded by busy streets where motorist and pedestrians pass daily. While our teachers and staff make the inside of Oakwood feel special and welcoming, it is up to PTA to help our exterior campus showcase the same inviting feeling that makes Oakwood so special. Unfortuantly maintaining playgrounds, soccer fields and flower beds is not an easy task, so at the end of the 2023-24 school year, we enlisted some help! Thankfully Matthew and his crew at True Authority Landscapes were up to the challenge. True Authority provided us with a plan to update, improve and maintain our beloved campus. In the summer of 2024, True Authority began with Phase 1 of the project. In Fall 2024, Phase 2 began at the front of the campus, which included removal of old bushes and placement of fresh, new plants/bushes and mulching. We would love to be able to continue with the proposed plan for Phases 3, which include the overhauling the soccer field, providing new landscaping at our Library entrance and updating our play space near the Preschool classroom to include safe walking paths to the the lower playground and a sensory space for kids.
We will be working on ways to fundraise for these much needed improvements over the 2024-25 school year. Please join us during our general meetings to follow along or generate ideas. If you are able to volunteer for campus clean up or have a youth or group that is looking to earn volunteer hours, please contact PTA at our email or let the office know and we will be in touch to set up ways you can support.
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We are also accepting donations to the Campus Beautification Fund if you feel inclined.
Phase 1 & 2
Parking Lot Green Space/Pressure Washing/Prep-Beds/Front Bushes & Flowers/Mulching
Our green spaces in our only parking lot were greatly overgrown with unruly bushes, weeds and had little to no mulch remaining. True Authority worked tirelessly to remove the old shrubs and brought in truckloads of rock to fit the beds with beautiful ground cover that will serve as a backdrop to new plants and bushes in the fall and will be a long lasting, more maintainable filler than the previous mulched beds. They also removed a tree that limited parking due to the low hanging branches that made it difficult for cars to pull under.
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True Authority spent many hours cleaning moldy areas from overhangs and around our play spaces and heavily traveled areas on campus.
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Temporary pine needles were placed as we prep for new bushes and updated scapes in the fall with Phase 2
