On Aug. 9, officials with Phillips 66 General Aviation rolled up their sleeves, endured the summer heat, and left their mark on Madison Middle School (MMS) in Bartlesville, Okla.
In the fall of 2015, the school relocated to a new building about a quarter of a mile from their old facility.
During this move, the leadership of the school questioned how they would manage to move all of the items from their self-constructed Outdoor Learning Environment.
Years prior to the move, students, faculty, and parents came together to build an outdoor classroom complete with a pergola, fountains, tables, sound system, and weather station. This endeavor took a great amount of money from donations and grants, as well as many hours of hard work and dedication.
With the 2016 school year quickly approaching, Phillips 66 GA employees stepped in to help make the challenge of moving these items a reality.
According to company officials, 17 people from the GA team came out to assist staff of MMS in removing items from the Outdoor Learning Environment and moving them to their new school building.
From painting stairwells to disassembling a pergola, to removing edging stone and pulling out river rock, the team put in over 90 hours of manual labor.
“The amount of material recovered by the volunteer group was amazing,” said Joey Edson, principal of Madison Middle School. “We have been trying to figure out how to get all of the items that were donated through grants when we built the OLE and now we’ve been able to retrieve them. This would not have been possible without the efforts from the Phillips 66 volunteers.”
This combined effort also resulted in giving the school a $2,000 grant from Phillips 66 for the combined volunteer hours.