Drive through downtown Orange and you’ll be just a stone’s throw from a beautiful, modern building with stunning murals and soon-to-be installed solar array poised beside a thriving wetland and accessible walking path. As a relative newcomer to town in 2021, I was so grateful to learn how all of this came to be, with local talent at every step.

In 2020, the town voted for the replacement of our aging elementary school, Dexter Park, with the expansion of the Fisher Hill School. The state-of-the-art, 97,000-square-foot facility was championed by the School Building Committee, with an Orange elementary graduate, Hunter Aptekar, as the engineer for the school project. Bruce Scherer, the building committee chair, worked with renowned local artist Susan Haulenbeek Marshall to create two murals, “The Tree of Knowledge” and “Otter’s World” as she engaged the student body to choose the local wildlife to depict in her multi-story Otter mural. The school mascot, Dexter the Otter, is a creation of local artist Michael Williams.

During the school design process, Scherer knew that solar would save the school on its operating budget, but given the tight capacity for new renewable installations as larger commercial arrays have taken up a lot of our area’s renewable “bandwidth,” he knew it could be a challenge. Solect Energy helped explore an innovative pilot program with National Grid to test the applicability of storage for renewable energy. A volunteer group of grant writers applied for five grants resulting in funding from National Grid and the state of Massachusetts to fund the solar array and battery, which will cover half its energy load and save the school over $70,000 a year in electricity costs for at least 20 years.

The Massachusetts-based Solect will install the array and battery, with two Orange Elementary/Mahar graduates, Phil and Dave Valiquette Lalonde, serving as lead electrical installers.

The final grant award, from the Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Program, helped cover the costs of the array and includes an open-sided outdoor classroom with interpretive signage to be constructed in the spring, which will overlook the wetland along the accessible pathway. The outdoor classroom will be constructed by local builder Jesse Brown from White Oak Timberframe.

As part of the grant deliverables, a series of community outreach events are underway to make residents aware of the new energy source powering the school, and its vital connection to a healthy and thriving natural environment. Organizers and volunteers from the Orange Energy Committee, along with Seeds of Solidarity Education Center, Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust, and the Athol Bird and Nature Club are working to bring fun and exciting activities for the students at Fisher Hill, but also to inform various community groups including the North Orange Community Church, residents at King James and Pine Crest, and the members of the Orange Seniors Club.

All are welcome to see the grounds and learn more about the project at a family-friendly event at the school during April vacation week: “Celebrate the Sun” on Tuesday, April 22 (Earth Day!) from 1 to 3 p.m.

As someone who has served on energy committees and worked with solar installers, I can appreciate the challenges inherent in many similar initiatives and I am in awe of how many hands (and heads and hearts) have joined together in community to make this wonderful learning space a reality.

As Susan Haulenbeek Marshall quoted from Van Gogh at the reveal of her murals, “What would life be if we did not have the courage to attempt anything?”

Pam Harty lives in Orange.