When students begin the school year Sept. 8 at Sibley Elementary School, they’ll walk into the front doors between new landscaping done by a former student.

Albert Lea High School sophomore Sean Laurie, 15, organized a service project to redo the landscaping at the front of Sibley. Sean organized the project as his Eagle Scout project.

Sean, a former Sibley student, said former Sibley principal and former superintendent David Prescott told him the old landscaping was done in the 1980s and had changed little since.

The areas that were landscaped had become worn down from years of students walking over them, and dirt was beginning to show through the rocks.

“From all the walking, it just wasn’t really nice looking, so once it came time for an Eagle Scout project, I thought this would be perfect,” Sean said, a Troop 7 scout.

The landscaping is at the front corners of the building facing Southwest Middle School, and the landscaping continues to the front entrance and by the four corners of the sidewalk leading to the entrance.

“Community service is certainly something that everyone appreciates,” said Principal Ross Williams.

The project was beneficial for the school, because there aren’t employees to do that kind of work.

“We cut the grass, but we really don’t have the personnel to spend time trimming, pruning and doing that kind of thing,” Williams said.

“The stuff that was there was certainly overgrown and not weeded very well. It certainly needed some work,” he added.

Few plant varieties were used in the old landscaping, and Sean said he chose different plants that bloomed in the fall, spring and summer. Some of the plants included, dogwood, iris, juniper, salvia and daylilies.

After his troop leaders approved the project, Sean received a $1000 donation from the Sibley Parent-Teacher Organization. All the money went directly to Stonewerk Inc. for the materials because Sean could not handle the money.

An Eagle Scout project needs to be 100 hours or more of work split among volunteers on a public service project. Leadership is a key aspect of the project, as Sean recruited and organized the volunteers.

The project lasted about a week and 154 hours in late June. About 20 volunteers participated, including other Scouts, a Sibley teacher, Sean’s friends and Sean’s parents.

To attract volunteers, Sean sent out a note to Scouts and called some, but he said he didn’t know how many Scouts would show up each day, but he said those who came worked hard. Those hours are important to other Scouts, because they need community service hours to move up a Scout rank.

Sean and his crew removed the old plastic and rocks, put down weed killer and new plastic, and also used the old rock as a base, since the new rock was a similar color.

“It was hard work. It was long, hard work,” said Linda Laurie, Sean’s mother. “It was a lot harder work than I expected.”

“It’s a lot of lifting and moving,” Sean added. “It’s hard on your back, because we had to dig out a lot of stuff.”

Linda said it was difficult to remove the old plants since they’d been growing for more than 20 years.

Sean said he enjoyed seeing the progress as the old landscaping was stripped to dirt, and then new materials and plants were planted.

They also planted grass in some areas leading to the buses, and Sean said he wanted it to be so the landscaping would require little maintenance in the future.

Sean and his family have stopped at Sibley since to water and maintain the plants. Sean’s brother, Colin, is a fourth-grader at Sibley, so Linda said she’s at Sibley often.

Summer school was going on at Sibley during the project, and Sean said he heard a lot of positive responses from the teachers.

Sean was 14 when he worked on the project, and it was one of the last steps in becoming an Eagle Scout, and Sean recently sent in his application. He’ll have a meeting with a regional leader, and then sends paperwork to the national office. That process could be completed by October, and he’ll then become an official Eagle Scout at a Court of Honor.