In conversation with Dan Hendry, Sustainable Initiatives Coordinator, Limestone District School Board

Evergreen’s Climate Ready Schools builds on our 30-year legacy of transforming school grounds across Canada into nature-rich play and learning environments for both children and their communities. The Climate Ready Schools Conversation Series is focused on connecting people and organizations interested in this important work with the knowledge and expertise of key leaders and change advocates who have partnered with Evergreen on these innovative climate adaptive design projects. 

Dan Hendry is the Sustainable Initiatives Coordinator at Limestone District School Board (LDSB) in Eastern Ontario, where he has supported numerous school ground greening initiatives. Dan is also the Co-Founder and Project Director of Get on the Bus, a national movement aimed at investing in youth transit education and creating sustainable transportation options that benefit youth, the environment and the community.   

As someone deeply involved in greening school grounds, can you share insights into how you work with the Board to increase these opportunities for schools? 

We have a formal committee with parents, community partners and senior administrators that meet about all things environmental sustainability related, including school ground greening and naturalization. Through that committee, we were connected to Evergreen which was the catalyst that started our work. 

How does the greening process work at your school board? 

A pivotal part of the process is putting together a document on school ground naturalization, which we did collaboratively with Evergreen. Their process was highly participatory, and they guided us through the different steps with the support of many different people. School ground naturalization is now embedded in LDSB’s facility planning process which allows more to be done.  

In your view, what is the power of partnerships in driving environmental work? 

We can only move at the speed of trust. Relationships and partnerships allow us to notice and take advantage of opportunities. For example, we can make a connection between a flood management plan for a school zone and apply that to the surrounding area.  

Having a focused, streamlined process when talking to municipalities or other partners also supports our work. Municipalities have a lot of responsibility that isn’t always paired with the necessary resources. Programs like Climate Ready Schools help connect people on the ground with the resources they need.  

Climate Ready Schools projects cross jurisdictions and bring partners with different lenses together toward a common purpose with a common timeline — Indigenous voices, public health agencies, conservation authorities. 

When climate work becomes democratized and decentralized, we learn through connection, and create power in community.  

How would you build support internally for a whole school ground transformation like the one at Irma Coulson Public School in the Halton District School Board? 

Everyone is busy! A lot of good people are doing good work, but it’s not always integrated. 

Constraints like budgets exist, but we can always look at operational and strategic plans to find overlap and alignment. Evergreen brings together different organizations to initiate these conversations through their Climate Ready Schools program.  

When making decisions about school grounds, we need all voices at the table — surrounding neighbourhoods, folks with accessibility considerations, Indigenous voices, community voices, municipal voices! Climate Ready Schools allow multiple people to come together to create something distinct, useful and meaningful. It’s a medium for conversation and a process of collaborating to build something beautiful together. It creates the catalyst for conversation and a vision for action.

Learn more 

Are you interested in supporting the Climate Ready Schools program? Are you representing a school board interested in your own Climate Ready Schools journey? Please send your inquiries to climatereadyschools@evergreen.ca. We’d love to hear from you! 

Want to learn more? Check out our wealth of resources on the Evergreen Resource Hub.