By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – When deciding which project to complete for her Girl Scout Gold Award, Thompson High School junior Sarah Messer wanted to make sure her efforts lasted for many years.

Months of planning and many hours of manual labor later, Messer’s impact can already be witnessed at Thompson Intermediate School.

“I looked at the special-needs kids here (at TIS), and asked ‘What can I do to help them?’” Messer said during a visit to TIS on Aug. 19. “For the project, it has to be something that can last forever.”

For the past several months, Messer has been working to construct three flowerbeds outside TIS special education teacher Tracy Canaday’s classroom, and is planning to fill them with everything from kale to carrots and lemongrass.

The project includes one 10-by-10-foot flowerbed and two smaller 6-by-6-foot flowerbeds.

After going through the process to have the project approved by the Girl Scout Council, Messer, a member of the Alabaster-based Girl Scout Troop 993, began planning the project’s implementation, and sought guidance from Myer’s Plants and Pottery in Pelham and from her teachers at THS.

When THS science and history teacher John Cole heard about the project, he offered to donate a load of treated 2-by-4 wooden planks to help in the flowerbeds’ construction.

“It was enough to build all of them,” Messer said of the donations, noting most of the project’s funding came from Girl Scout cookie sales.

After about eight hours of build time, Messer completed the flowerbeds’ construction on Aug. 16 before making her first visit to Canaday’s students on Aug. 19.

During the Aug. 19 visit, Messer showed the students a PowerPoint presentation describing the different types of plants to be grown in the flowerbeds, drawing plenty of feedback and excitement from the class.

Messer and Myers Plants and Pottery owner Stewart Myers then placed several of the plants into the beds, leaving room for Canaday’s students to plant more vegetables during class on Aug. 21.

“This is something that is very therapeutic for them,” Messer said. “They get to take care of it and take ownership of it. It could last forever.”