This past Saturday saw the fruition of a long-term collaborative project. On a patch of land between the softball field and Elmendorf Lake, OLLU students and employees, along with community partners, erected a 16-foot-tall chimney swift tower. Chimney swifts are birds whose numbers are in severe decline in San Antonio due to a lack of nest sites. Traditionally, they nested within chimneys, but with more metal chimneys these days, they can’t find safe places to roost. Chimney swift towers are essentially boxes specially built to satisfy their needs, with textured perches built inside.
Our new campus chimney swift tower was born out of a collaboration with the Bexar County Audubon Society. Last Fall, the Center for Service-Learning and Volunteerism partnered with faculty from the Department of Mathematics and Sciences to write an Audubon community mini-grant to fund birdhouses and educational materials on campus. The tower part of a larger project to set up traditional birdhouses on our campus, but also among our neighbors at Rodriguez Montessori Elementary School, Little Flower School, and the Las Palmas public library, and to provide binoculars and educational materials developed in our biology laboratory classes for the children and the public. The new OLLU Audubon student club has been involved with the planning and logistics of this project every step of the way.
The construction of the tower took many hands as lots of partners lined up for the project. The cutting of the wood and pre-assembly of different tower modules was completed at Sidney Lanier High School by students in the Career and Technical Education program with their teacher, Mr. Benjamin Rodrigues. The outer skin of the tower was then painted with a colorful mural depicting a rosary, chimney swifts, flowers and the word “OLLU” in a collaborative event last week by students in the Art Ink and Alliance clubs along with faculty from the Visual & New Media Arts program. Also last week, students from the TExAS FAST Scholars program stepped up to help lay the foundation in time for it to properly cure for Saturday.
All of this came together with the final assembly of the tower this weekend which included OLLU students involved in the vOLLUnteer Unity Council, faculty from Environmental Science and Sustainability, high school students, and even a visiting friend in from Texas Tech for Fiesta. All of it came together not just physically but o a deeper level when the participants were joined by Sisters Rose and Anita from the Congregation of Divine Providence who helped us bless the tower and recognize its importance as a tool for rebuilding and caring for fragile landscapes.
The participants invite everyone to come down the path on Elmendorf Lake Park or cross 24th street across from the Chapel and stroll down the road to take a look.
