Keller Williams agents dressed in their Red Day t-shirts study maps before heading out to mark storm drains. Coordinator Joyce Warren, in a blue Frisco Water Wise T-shirt, is in the background talking with a volunteer.

Keller Williams Realty designates one day in May every year for community service. The annual “Red Day” (for Renew Energize and Donate) is a tradition that began with company vice-chairman Mo Anderson and draws out thousands of Keller Williams agents across the nation each spring.

This year, Keller Williams Frisco Stars agents chose a green project for their Red Day. About two dozen agents volunteered to help the city mark storm drains, an ongoing project that aims to keep streams and lakes clear of debris and pollution.

“We’re trying to protect the natural beauty and the wildlife of our environment,” explained Water Education Coordinator Joyce Warren as she organized the Keller Williams agents into teams of three that would walk neighborhoods and mark the drains.

Litter, plastic bottles, grass clippings, pesticides. All these things end up floating, drifting or being brushed into storm drains, which flow directly into natural waterways, Warren said.

“We’re asking citizens to put their grass clippings back on their lawn,” she said. That’s better for the yard anyway, because it adds nutrients and provides cover.

Karla Schwartz, Geniya Talsky and Clive McCarthy place their first storm drain marker.

It’s also better if people could cut back a bit on the fertilizers and chemicals they use on their yards, because with Frisco’s heavy clay soil, too often the chemical applications wash off into the storm sewer, carrying polluted water into creeks and streams.

“The big thing is a lot of people apply too much, they’ll buy a big bag of fertilizer and dump the whole thing on their lawn, and if they could [it would be better to] use organic fertilizers. With an organic fertilizer you’re just putting natural substances back into the environment,” Warren said.

The same goes for trash or dirt. It shouldn’t be swept into the drain.

The storm drain markers have distilled this multi-pronged message into a friendly concise reminder:  Don’t Dump/Flows to Creek.

And so the Keller Williams teams set out with work bags containing markers, maps and glue.

Walking subdivisions near the Keller Williams office at 4783 Preston Road, the volunteer teams were reminded of the reason for the project as song birds trilled in the background on tree-lined streets.

“People choose Frisco for the good balance the city has of urban growth and natural beauty,” said Clive McCarthy, a Liberty Mutual agent who works with the Keller Williams

The storm drain marker reminds residents that storm drains flow to natural waterways.

office. “This helps protect that.”

Realtor Geniya Talsky said she was glad the project was low-key and would have direct impact.

“We’re giving back in a non-traditional way — and not to get leads,”  she said with a smile. “We’re doing something that maybe no one will notice [the volunteering], but you know you got it done.”

Agent Karla Schwartz also said she was glad to be helping the community and the environment.

“I want to get involved where it matters most,” she said.

By the end of the morning, the Keller Williams teams had marked 275 storm drains, Warren said.

Cindy Coffin, a Keller Williams agent who helped organize the volunteering day, said all the local teams enjoyed the experience.

Keller Williams teams marked 275 storm drains on their day of service, May 9.

“It was a different opportunity for us compared to other things we’d done in the past,” she said. “We did [work at] Hope Park and we had quite a contingent to Frisco Family Services and the food pantry [where KW agents also volunteered], but the people who did this, enjoyed the walking and got to know the neighborhood.”

“It was a great volunteering opportunity,” Coffin said. “It helped the city and was the green thing to do.”

All told, the volunteers from a variety of community and scouting groups have marked more than 4,000 storm drains across the city, with several thousand more to go, Warren said.

Any group that wants to help out with the storm drain marking project should call Ms. Warren at 972-292-5852.

Like many boys approaching their Eagle Scout project, the crowning achievement of years spent working up the ranks of the Boy Scouts, Daniel Fallgatter often wondered what he would do to serve the community and win his Eagle badge.

Daniel Fallgatter explains his Eagle Scout project, which planted 500 trees at the Northwest Community Bike Trail and Park.

Daniel, 14,  was still in Clark Middle School in Frisco, and had plenty of time to become “an Eagle,” the top rank for a Boy Scout. But after he advanced to Life Scout, the rank just below Eagle, he wanted to push ahead. Daniel, who also enjoys track and cross country, loved nature and wanted to do something nature oriented. But what?

Then he and his father read an article in the newspaper about how Texas had lost an estimated 300 million trees to the drought of 2011-2012.

“I knew I couldn’t do (replant) millions of trees because that would just take a whole lot of time,” he said, grinning as he sat on a picnic table at Frisco’s Northwest Community Bike Trail and Park.

But he also knew he could do something to help. So Daniel contacted the city’s Urban Forestry Board and worked out a plan to contribute trees to the park.

The board welcomed his ideas, said chairman Mike Zapata, and cleared the path forward for planting the trees at the new park.

” Anytime we can get trees into the ground, that’s one of the missions of our board, so we’re always excited to find partners in that,” Zapata said.

Daniel could have decided to plant 100 trees, but that wasn’t the sort of thinking that got him to the Eagle Scout phase three to four years ahead of many Scouts, who typically pursue their Eagle Badge in high school. (A Scout has until they’re 18 to finish their qualifying community project.)

Daniel wanted to go big, so he decided to plant a mix of 500 trees saplings in the hope that 300, maybe more, will survive.

Before the volunteers got started, Daniel coached them on planting techniques. Here a team of two plants and then presses down on the ground around the sapling.

After researching native, drought-hardy trees and shrubs, he raised donations from family and friends and ordered the trees from West Texas Nursery.

The order included two types of shrubs, Sand Plum and Sumac Aromatic, and four tree varieties, Honey Locust, Oak Chinkapin, Osage Orange and Red Mulberry.

“All the trees I picked are native to Northeast Texas, because of the drought, they will have a better chance of surviving,” he said.

And so on April 6, Daniel, his parents Peter and Sandra Fallgatter, and about 30 Scouts, Cub Scouts and friends, converged on Northwest, a park and mountain bike recreation area still under development.

Daniel divided the saplings into 11 buckets, each with a mix of trees and shrubs — the way nature does it — and the crews set out to plant. They worked for several hours, planting in a variety of areas around the dirt bike trail.

Daniel hopes the plantings will survive, though he expects that a percentage will fail in the course of the first year. Those that survive, however, will help feed wildlife and provide valuable shade for  those using the municipal trail system.

“I don’t like to see trees die. I don’t like to see plants not growing in an area like this,” he said, his eyes sweeping the brushy, rolling fields. “It’s dry. Trees can change that.”

Daniel got help from Troop 51 members, friends, family, Urban Forestry Board Chair Mike Zapata and Trail Steward Bill Woodard.

Zapata agrees. The Urban Forestry Board was especially pleased that Daniel chose trees that will provide forage and survive on local rainfall.

“They may not be as popular in traditional suburban settings, but in this natural area, it was a good idea,” said Zapata, who also turned out on planting day to oversee the project and offer encouragement.

Now that the trees have been set into place, Daniel hopes for spring rains and plans to return during the summer to hand water the saplings. They’ll need a little help to have a fighting chance during what could be another blistering summer.

“I want to look back years later,” he said, “seeing all these trees we planted.”

Kristin Delrosario designed her piece to work with her room decor.

Students from Phillips Elementary School in Frisco came up with a unique kickoff for Earth Month, using garbage can lids as canvases to express their concerns about and hopes for the planet.

The lids came from the Home Depot, 5995 Eldorado Parkway, where it turns out that many customers who buy trash cans leave the lids behind.

Who knew? No one wants the lids. Apparently people who buy garbage cans, especially for public use, find that the lid is superfluous. Customers routinely leave them on the store shelves. The lids stack up, presenting a recycling burden for store managers.

But they’re an opportunity for crafty art teachers, like Phillips Elementary’s Heidi Easley, who are willing to go get them.

Leah Armstrong’s garbage lid creation features wild animals.

Easley learned about this odd lid surplus issue at a previous job in Florida, where a Home Depot manager reached out to her to offer the lids as potential classroom fodder. After moving to Frisco ISD, Easley checked with the local Home Depot and discovered that, indeed, lids were piling up there too. She claimed what they had and offered the garbage can toppers to her 5th grade students.

Her challenge for the 40 art club students was two-fold: Think about conservation and what’s important to you,  then find a way to express it using this unusual new art surface.

“They learn, at this early stage, that art doesn’t have to be on only paper or canvas,” Easley said.

The project also helps the student to unite academic learnings with their creative impulses, she said, explaining that she urged the kids to make their artwork personal.

“This project encouraged our students to think outside the box and to show what they’re passionate about when it comes to conservation,” she said.

The students displayed their creations at the Home Depot on April 1, where they discussed their projects with Frisco Independent School District teachers, parents and members of the media.

Audrey Fox focused her artwork on frogs.

“I really thought a lot about how we can heal the Earth,” said 5th grader Leah Armstrong. “It’s like the Golden Rule. We have to treat the world how we want to be treated.”

Sarah Singer also incorporated her love of animals into the project.

Student Audrey Fox said she wanted to pay homage to amphibians.

“I have three frogs at home and they inspired me to do this,” she said. “I really love my frogs and I know they are endangered.”

People can do a lot to help, she said. They could start by not eating frog legs and they could also save the frog’s habitat, she said.

“In rainforests, we can stop cutting the trees and polluting the water they live in and need.”

But with these blessings, comes a responsibility, to think about the water we’re using in our yards and gardens.

Drip line watering for flowers and efficient “cycle and soak” watering for turf can keep your landscape green and thriving.

North Texas remains dry, lake levels are still low and that means that Frisco remains under the water conservation status known as Stage 2. Stage 2 still allows residents to water their lawns twice a week but only if necessary and not between the hours of 10 a.m. to 6 p.m..

“We have been in Stage 2 since June 1 of last year,” said Melody Emadiazar, water resources manager for the city of Frisco. The reasons include a dry winter and spring, so far, and lowered access to reservoir water supplies related to the invasive zebra mussel problem (see Dallas Morning News or WFAA articles about zebra mussels) that has tied up water supplies at Lake Texoma, which helps supply Frisco.

The good news is that most plants in North Texas “can thrive” on minimal water, making Stage 2 quite doable, Emadiazar said, noting that even warm weather turfs such as Bermuda and St. Augustine can be trained to get by on one or two waterings per week.

The trick is to water effectively, she said. “We have enough water, we just don’t have enough to waste.”

Watering effectively, in North Texas, means homeowners must try to minimize runoff, which they can easily do by setting up their sprinkler syster on a “cycle and soak” program, Emadiazar said.

Cycle and soak involves running the sprinkler system for two successive cycles that run six to nine minutes per zone (for sprayer heads; rotor heads need a bit more time). In this way, the water is applied over a longer stretch of time, allowing the yard to better absorb all the water.

“The reason we have to apply this in North Texas is because we have clay soil,” Emadiazar said. “It’s thick and dense…If you water for 20 minutes you’re probably just going to have runoff.”

Stage 2′s watering schedule allows two days of watering per week, but only if necessary.

This “cycle and soak” system of watering is a bit like a food diet that cuts portions, she said, “you’re giving your lawn portioned drinks” that help it learn to live on less.

This method of watering works well because the grass roots will seek out the water deeper in the soil, laying down longer roots (three to four inches deep) that sustain the lawn between waterings, she explained. “You’ll have much more drought resistant turf.”

In this way, water conservation can not only save homeowners money, it creates more durable lawns.  And curbing water use will help the city save, as it looks ahead to supplying water for a growing population. “Conservation is the cheapest source of funding a new water supply,” she said, explaining that new reservoirs are a hugely costly proposition.

Here are other steps for Frisco residents who want to be water wise:

• Attend the water conservation workshops offered free by the city.  A Waterwise Irrigation Workshop, set for May 4 from 9 a.m. to noon, will feature area experts at the AgriLife Extension Center, 825 N. McDonald St., Suite 150, McKinney, Texas. Sponsors are Frisco, Allen and McKinney.

• Subscribe to Frisco’s Water Wise email, which offers tips on watering and weekly watering advice based on information from the city’s weather station. This information can help homeowners decide if they really need to water the lawn that week or if native rainfall was sufficient. Last year, weather station information indicated that there were only 20 weeks out of the year in which residents needed to water, and only one week when watering twice was recommended, Emadiazar said.

• Install a drip line irrigation system, which  drops water loss to evaporation to nearly zero, for flower beds and landscape gardens.

Get a free check up for your sprinkler system.

• Retrofit to a Smart Controller that auto adjusts your sprinkler system based on local water conditions.

• Don’t over fertilize or use pesticides that aren’t really needed. These chemicals can wash away in runoff, ending up in streams and lakes and ultimately the watershed, which returns this water to municipal supplies.  To make sure you’re only applying the chemicals or soil enrichments that are needed, test the soil to determine it’s actual deficiencies.

• Get expert advice for adjusting your sprinkler system by calling for a free irrigation check up. City of Frisco experts will evaluate your system and offer help in fixing broken or ineffective sprinkler heads and adjust your controller to increase water efficiency.

The Frisco Community Garden. (Photo: Carrie Ball)

It’s time to put your green thumb to good use. The Frisco Community Garden, which is starting its fifth year, kicks off its summer season on April 13 and still has openings for gardeners.

The 24-plot garden, maintained by the city of Frisco in partnership with Frisco Family Services, relies upon volunteer gardeners to grow produce for the FFS food pantry. Gardeners also can take some of the harvest for themselves on Saturdays, but the bulk of what’s grown is donated.

Garden helpers or harvesters also are needed to help collect, weigh and clean the produce, which Frisco Family Services distributes to families in need or crisis.

Last year, the garden contributed 1,000 pounds of tomatoes, eggplant, squash, cucumbers herbs and other fresh edibles to the pantry, said Chris Leonard, Frisco’s Neighborhood Services Coordinator.

The garden serves as a complement to the other foods collected by the pantry, helping to assure that families in need receive fruits and vegetables in addition to the non-perishables and dairy products available year-round at the food center.

“Fresh produce can get really expensive and when you’re going through a tough time that can be one of the first things to go,” said Carrie Ball, executive assistant at the food pantry.  The fresh donated seasonal produce helps fill in the gaps.

At the April 13 kickoff, Rob Wier, co-owner of Shades of Green nursery, will help out by donating seedlings, which the volunteers will plant that morning, Leonard said.

Many groups and businesses have helped out with the garden, located at First Street Park,  8641 1st St., Frisco. FCS Construction has donated soil and Environmental Services with the City of Frisco donated a truckload of mulch. Boy Scouts constructed a shade structure at the garden last year.

Community members who are interested in maintaining a 4 x 20 feet plot at the garden during the spring and summer pay a $20 fee. The city provides the rest — the water, soil, mulch and fertilizer, which is kept in a shed onsite. The garden uses only biological pest control and no synthetic chemicals or fertilizers, which means the produce is organic, Leonard said.

Interested residents of Frisco who would like to adopt a plot or help tend the garden should call Frisco Family Services, 8780 3rd Street, at  972-335-9495.

Teacher Justin Vawter with middle school students starting the “Build a City” project.(Photo: Skye Thibodeaux)

And there’s a lot more: There are water treatment and sewage systems, streets and trails, emergency operations, business and residential zones, parks and wildlife buffers — all embedded into our cozy communities to make us more comfortable and take care of city business so we can focus on other things.

But for nine weeks this past fall, a handful of students at Griffin Middle School in Frisco took a long look at these “back of the house” operations (to borrow a hotel term), so they could better understand how their corner of the world works, and how cities might morph into even better communities in the future.

The kids, members of Griffin’s talented and gifted 7th grade class, studied the history of cities, performed a “field survey” of their own neighborhood under the tutelage of senior city planner Beckye Frey and read literature about less-advantaged communities, specifically the ones portrayed in The House on Mango Street.

A student reads about Crashmanville, one of the futuristic cities developed by the 7th grade class at Griffin Middle School. (Photo: Marie Moore)

From these exercises “they can see what’s so great but also what’s lacking and what needs to be added,” to various cities, explains GT teacher Justin Vawter, who oversees the “Build a City” project.

They see that impoverished communities need more services, and that suburban communities like their own also need solutions. Their neighborhoods have focal points and amenities, but residents often find it hard to walk to retail centers because they’re  too far from residential areas, Vawter said.

Vawter likes the project because it provides the kids a hands-on learning experience that demands critical and creative thinking. The exercise culminates with the children working in teams to design their own fictional city, which gives them a clear goal and an opportunity to build a product. All these aspects make the “Build a City” project memorable, empowering and worthwhile, he said.

Throughout the nine weeks, Ms. Frye visits and makes presentations. She tweaks the children’s imaginations by talking about the history of cities and how they must be built to serve the needs of the human community, but also accommodate and sometimes yield to the natural environment. An oceanfront setting, for instance, presents both hazards — being exposed to  hurricanes and tsunamis — and opportunities — for recreation and tourism, she explained.

Judges praised winner “Rojeinburg” for its detail. (Photo: Marie Moore)

The class looks at the layout of cities, like Washington D.C., but also considers tree house communities in South America. Frye wants them to see that a community can take many forms;  to think expansively and not restrict themselves.

“I am not going to say you can’t have cars in your development or you have to have solar, what I do is tell them to look at all the options.”

And they do. This year’s teams employed unique types of transportation, such as the monorail built into “Rojeinberg,” the winning city, and the latest green energy technologies. Nearly all of the cities had some zone dedicated for a wind or solar farm, or hydro-electric power, as part of their city plan.

“The kids are more into energy efficiency, even in buildings,” Vawter said. “They see the need for it. There was no lesson on it, they came back with the solution on their own.”

Students used legos to model aspects of their cities and while presenting their plans. (Photo: Skye Thibodeaux)

Rojeinberg also featured a magnet school, a technology district, a port and several “mixed use” areas in which neighborhoods abutted retail and work zones. The design, a city that wrapped around a lake, was notable for its walk-ability and multiple transportation options and “connectivity,” Frye said. This showed that the team, composed of Ian Collins, Dalton Webber and Shreya Rao, had really thought about how a city’s mission is to serve its inhabitants.

“If you’ve only got one way to get somewhere and that one way breaks down, what do you do?” she said.  “…Having a community that has the options is much better.”

But as good as Rojeinberg was, the other cities, including the one that came in second place, were also richly detailed and well-thought out, said Frye, who’s helped with the project for each of the four years it’s been running. She and other city planners collaborate on the mutually beneficial program at the request of the school district.

“They did such a good job this year, they put so much effort into it,” she said. “It was great.”

Build a City winners (l-r), Ian Collins, Dalton Webber and Shreya Rao . (Photo: Marie Moore)

Vawter, who’s shepherded Build a City for three years, said he always feels a bit of trepidation as the students hash out the final details of their envisioned city, finalizing the design and papers that explain it. The project requires a lot of output for 12- and 13-year-olds, but they rise to the challenge, he said.

“I can honestly say I’ve never been disappointed.”

Frisco residents recycled more than ever at Chunk Your Junk events in 2012.

In fact, the 74 tons of recycled goods collected last year was nearly quadruple the tonnage collected for recycling when the Chunk Your Junk program began in 2007.

The amount of trash collected at the city’s quarterly Chunk Your Junk events also has grown, but  environmental services staff were most pleased to see that in 2012 recyclables surpassed the trash collected. (See graph above.)

“The trend of less trash, and more recycling is very positive for both the city as well as the environment,” said Jeremy Starritt, manager of Environmental Services.

“We’re getting a lot of very green-minded people moving to the city who want to recycle and that makes the program even better,” Starritt said, noting that the rise in recycling at Chunk Your Junk is mirrored by a rise in curbside recycling.

City figures show curbside recycling has risen as well, though it’s difficult to quantify the amounts exactly because the recycled material is handled by various recyclers and contracting services, especially for businesses, Starritt said.

The city does know that the amount of trash being collected in the neighborhoods has declined, even though the city’s population is rising. The trash collected per person in the city has gone down 4.5 percent, he added.

That indicates that people are jumping aboard with recycling, Starritt said.

“It’s not necessarily that people aren’t purchasing the same amount of materials, but they’re properly disposing of it, even more so than they were before,” he said.

In addition, Frisco residents are saving money on landfill costs, nearly $550,000 in 2012 alone, according to Environmental Services.

With Chunk Your Junk participation at an all-time high, Starritt said he hopes residents remember they can recycle many recyclables — cardboard, plastics and more — during regular operating hours at the Environmental Services Collection Center at 6616 Walnut St., Frisco. Hazardous chemicals — paints, cleaners, electronic waste, batteries and oil — are collected on Wednesdays and Saturday mornings at the center. See hours and acceptable items here.

The next Chunk Your Junk is at the center on April 20, from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., at IKEA, in conjunction with the city’s annual “Clean It and Green It” event.

For more information see the city website on recycling.

Free water-saving shower heads are still available. Just bring your old shower head and a copy of your water bill to Frisco Public Works at 11300 Research Rd, Frisco, TX 75033.