The next time you see a tree, you might stop to consider why GreenWood selected this as its symbol and mascot.
When we first looked for a property to build our physical space, we found this beautiful 12 acre farm in Harrisville. Reaching out to us, with its strong, inviting limbs was a lone tree, growing out of a tin shed used for holding irrigation pipe valves.
While it was obvious this tree was not planted with intention, the tree grew and grew to become the tree we saw standing at the front of this farm. This tree stood for the growth we wanted to support in every GreenWood Student and Teacher.
At GreenWood, we have pursued these answers through a holistic approach to education—this approach is explained by our GreenWood tree- a symbol of the growth we hope to inspire in each of our students. An ecosystem, that nurtures each of our students as seedlings with nurturing support for what we want each to become. Rather, we nourish and encourage all light until it grows clear, bright, and true.
GreenWood's work is to build a more supportive school system: an ecosystem that can nurture, care for and encourage our students to grow as Student Seedlings in a responsive and flexible grove of empathic Teacher Trees, energized by the light of our families:
And that is why we need you, our families to support our growing forest of trees and seedlings with your light.
Removing of the competition for water, sunlight, and soil nutrients, doesn't help trees, it weakens them. the chosen trees would be released to grow and develop in extraordinary ways.
In nature it's unusual to see a tree standing alone. Trees almost always grow in groves, and over time these become forests like the one we hope to grow at GreenWood.
Trees draw strength from the nutrients created by previous generations of trees. People, like trees, who share a common direction and sense of community can grow more easily supported by the work of trees before it.