At William L. Sayre High School, a courtyard sat vacant for years, despite the school community’s need for a healing space.
“We’re not a typical school in that our students come to school and are worry-free. They come with trauma, and they leave with trauma,” said Nina Brevard, assistant principal at Sayre High School. “We’re not just here for credits, we’re also here for creating productive citizens. We found ourselves in a place where we needed to beautify, but also we needed to breathe.”
To address the school’s need for a space to “breathe,” a group of faculty, students, and staff from Penn’s Weitzman School of Design, Graduate School of Education, Perelman School of Medicine, and Netter Center for Community Partnerships teamed up with Sayre to transform the abandoned courtyard into the Breathing Room: a vibrant, functional outdoor space.
“Breathing Room” from the Weitzman School of Design’s YouTube channel.
The project, which was supported by Penn’s Office of Social Equity and Community (SEC) as part of their Projects for Progress (P4P) initiative, prioritized direct collaboration between Sayre students and the graduate students in Weitzman’s Studio+ initiative to ensure that the revamped garden reflected their wants and needs, while also giving them hands-on experiences in its construction.
“One of my core beliefs is that green spaces are a human right, and another is you trust kids with power tools,” said Daniel Flinchbaugh, a 2022 Master of Landscape Architecture graduate hired to teach the Weitzman students woodworking skills for the project. “I really like teaching young people that they have agency in their built environment […] that’s a really special and empowering activity to do.”
By letting the students have ownership over the project, the collaborative team and Sayre teachers are confident that the garden will allow students to feel safe, connected, and empowered.
“I feel accomplished. This feels nice, especially with the colors we chose. I feel safe in this area,” said Donna Marie Robinson, a senior at Sayre High School. “To see all of our different ideas come together—everybody had their own thing.”
“It’s about more than just building a garden; it’s about building a community,” said Joseph Brand of the Netter Center. “Students smiling, enjoying the space, seeing the fruits of their labor—I think that that’s really special.”