Grace Montessori School was at the heart of a local partnership that created of a labrynth in downtown Allentown, Pennsylvania, on property owned by Grace Episcopal Church.
“This area is transforming,” said Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski, whose children had attended the school, which is owned by Grace Episcopal Church in the city.
He thanked the Lehigh Valley Chapter of the Commercial Real Estate Women (LV CREW), Spillman Farmer Architects, Joanne Kostecky Garden Designs and PPL (Pennsylvania Power ad Light) for collaborating on the labyrinth. This fall in Philadelphia, it will be one of the featured projects at Greenbuild, the biggest conference on sustainability in the United States.
“It was a partnership of lots of people coming together,” said Libby House, executive director of Grace Montessori.
The idea for the living labyrinth grew out of a school chapel service in which students followed the path of a canvas labyrinth.
Rosalin Petrucci from LV CREW approached the school about doing a green project for it and embraced the idea of creating a labyrinth, House said.
The architects and garden designer came up with plans and LV CREW and PPL workers pitched in digging sod, planting grasses and other landscaping on Saturdays to complete it. The wild grasses border a gravel pathway and will expand to fill in the beds and create grassy walls of the labyrinth.