St Anne’s School in Sunbury has cleaned up at this year’s Tidy Towns Awards, taking home the City Environment Award for its work reintroducing diverse indigenous species specific to the municipality.
Keep Australia Beautiful Victoria recently announced the winners of the 41st annual awards, which recognises, celebrates and shares environmental achievements and strong community spirit across the state.
St Anne’s School environmental team won the award in the environment category for projects that protect, restore and prevent damage to the natural environment.
Its Pollinator’s Corridor project was initiated to complement the open space in the adjacent park and to increase the levels of biodiversity within the area.
Sustainability leader Joanne Hannan said the students thought that it was a great honour to be nominated and were thrilled at the news.
“This project has been a work in progress for the last three years, through COVID lockdowns,” Ms Hannan said.
“It has had three groups of senior students and environmental teams work towards this project so it is quite the achievement to be recognised.
“As a school community, we value our immediate environment as well as that surrounding our school and endeavour to have a positive impact on it.”
Looking towards the future, Ms Hannan said there are a number of projects they have identified to start working on, including getting a significant tree heritage listed and giving the Sensory Garden a face lift.
The Romsey Storm and Flood Recovery facility was also the winner for the EPA Waste Prevention and Reduction category for projects that focus on minimising what goes into landfills.
Zoe Moffatt
