In October 2024, Crookston High School Industrial Tech teacher Travis Oliver and Agriculture teacher Carolyn Pavlish presented to the school board a plan for a greenhouse on the High School grounds. “Last spring, Ms. Pavlish wrote a grant to AGRI Urban Agriculture, and we got the grant,” says Oliver. “The time we got the grant was the middle of summer. So, once we found out we got the grant, we went to the school board and told them this is what we are planning on doing, this is how much money we got, and that we weren’t asking for anything from them, but this is what we are going to build.”
Oliver says that over the winter, they got started on the plan to build the greenhouse and now that summer is here, the project is underway. On Friday, May 30, Neil Benoit was at the high school digging the footings for the greenhouse, and Phil Bertils came and filled in the rock bed. Knife River is supplying the concrete for the greenhouse foundation. “Materials are going to be bought here in town as well at the Crookston Building Center, and we are going to do a 24’ wide by 44’ long deep winter, year-round greenhouse.”
The greenhouse will be used for a number of things. “There is a plan, what do we want to see in five years. Potential flower sales and vegetables grown for the cafeteria,” says Oliver. “We are kind of mimicking that off of other schools and what some other schools have done.”
The greenhouse will be located on the east side of the high school. “If you drive by the high school right now, it’s going to be kind of hidden by a little half wall on the East side of the building,” says Oliver. “It is right off the patio, the never-used patio, on the back side of the commons. It will be basically 10 feet from the school.”
Oliver said it will be stick-built on a foundation. Inside, instead of a concrete floor, we are going to do a 16” thick rock bed,” says Oliver. “Underneath the rock bed will be corrugated piping that will take the heat from the top of the building and push it down with fans into the rock bed. The rock bed then heats up and keeps the heat overnight.”
This process will repeat daily, and Oliver says that talking with some other schools, they have not needed any other auxiliary heat. The Crookston High School greenhouse is a little bigger than the other schools he has looked at, so there is a plan to have a backup heater in there, but the hope is it won’t need to be run.
The plan for the greenhouse came from the University of Minnesota and their sustainability research. “The plan is actually off of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Sustainable Building Research,” says Oliver. “So, it’s not a Travis Oliver Plan, I’m just building what they told me to build basically.”
The school district shouldn’t see any cost in the construction of the greenhouse because it is grant-funded. “I’m hoping again, school board, that we are not spending any money,” says Oliver. “Other than water, you need to water plants and a little bit of electricity, potentially, and then just having that backup heater in there just in case.”
Residents are welcome to loop around the school, check out the progress, and stop and ask questions. There will be chances for everyone to see the finished greenhouse. “Once we get it up and kind of have it buttoned up, we are going to have a couple of open houses,” says Oliver. “It will probably be the start of the school year, and Back to School Registration might be an option as well.”
The project will continue to progress over the summer, and Oliver says he could use some volunteer help at times. He is not expecting people to volunteer for eight-hour days or anything like that, but maybe an evening a week or something like that. You can email Oliver at travisoliver@isd593.org, call or text him at 218-289-0551.
https://www.mda.state.mn.us/grants/grants/urbanaggrant
