Landscaping Ladies: East community members Lauren Kline and Lori Stolberg keep up the landscaping at East over the years

Sitting at her kitchen counter in the fall of 2004, then-East parent Lauren Kline opened the packet she received in the mail from the SME PTSA asking for volunteers for their committees. Kline’s first daughter, Taylor, was a freshman at East that year, and she wanted to get involved. She hoped to be a part of her daughter’s school by helping out the students and community. After reviewing the committee options, she chose landscaping. 

The job description included adding details to the exterior of the school with a variety of plants, working under Dana Tanner who ran the committee at the time. A few years later in 2009, Kline became accompanied by fellow East parent, Lori Stolberg, who, little did she know, would be working with her for over a decade to come. 

Stolberg had volunteered to do the landscaping at her childrens’ school, Tomahawk Elementary, for multiple years prior, so when her first child came to East, she naturally carried over with the job title.

Stolberg and Kline’s first project together was helping to move the school’s entrance. Originally located at the current counseling office, the entrance was moved towards the main office. They put in beds with various plants leading up to the main office doors, and a few around the memorial sitting on the northeast side of the building.

As they worked under Tanner, learning the necessary skills and growing a passion for creating an aesthetic exterior to the school for their children and their peers, their bond and commitment to the committee grew. They learned the proper ways to water, plant, weed, trim and more, preparing them for when they’d someday take over the committee themselves.

12 years later, they’re now the only two on the committee and have transformed it from watering plants and organizing flower beds to doing all of the planning and execution of new landscaping projects — even creating a friendship in the process.

“We really take pride in how it looks and what we want for the kids that go there,” Stolberg said. “And we enjoy doing it. And we enjoy each other’s company too, so it’s just kind of our thing.”

Through volunteering together at the school every Saturday for years, with the exception of downtime in the winter months, the two have formed a love for the program and don’t see an end in the near future — even though Stolberg’s kids have all graduated, and Kline’s last is a senior. 

While Kline and Stolberg have put countless hours into the program over the years, they’re the two most commonly unknown committee members within the PTSA according to President Tiffonie Dirks. Because their funding is attained from the PTSA and other donation sources like friends and clients, most of the East community is oblivious to the work Kline and Stolberg do. 

“They are two people that fly under the radar the most with what they do and how large their role is because they’ve done it for so long,” Dirks said. “It’s a huge role to take on and to do for so long — they [are] so underappreciated. I think it’s just [that] nobody understood how large their role was and how much time and effort and devotion they have for what they [do] and what they have given to East.”

Stolberg doesn’t do it for her family anymore — she and Kline still care about the school’s exterior looks and providing students with possible education tools. That’s why they show up every week to keep up with their work and plan their next big projects. 

“We look for areas that need some attention and that’s where we focus,” Kline said. “And we’ve tried to put some big interesting trees in so that they can be educational tools. We have a bald cypress that’s over by the choir and band room and then there’s Kentucky Coffeetree — that one is by the gym.”

Kline and Stolberg dedicate their landscape planning to creating plant beds and landscapes that are long-lasting, low-maintenance and often educational for the students. 

Their next big project? Renewing the East memorial outside the counseling office on the northeast side of the property. The memorial — a dedication to past honorable East members with artwork and plaques — has been sitting on it’s small patch of land since before either of them joined the committee. When they look at the few spare benches and empty grasses, they see a potential place for students and community members to hang out and read about East community members. 

Kline and Stolberg hope to plant various grasses such as Miscanthus and Switchgrass there soon and add flowers in the spring to make the area more welcoming and honor everyone included in the memorial.

“We’re doing it to make people feel good about East,” Stolberg said. “Just having a nice place [that] also can be used for educational purposes. If the art department wants to go out and draw or whatever, and just being able to sit outside and even have a class and just have plant material around you is nice.” 

They’re unsure of the future of the landscaping committee. After all, this is the last year either of them will have a student at East. They haven’t decided when they’ll end their Saturday meetings together, but won’t continue forever as they believe eventually it will be time to pass it onto the next crew. Klein says they love their jobs and are happy to continue, but want outside help from East students and parents that would be willing to continue the committee when they leave. 

“If we could get some people that want to be involved in it, it would be nice,” Stolberg said. “It’s not something that we are trying to keep to ourselves and not share, we would love to share it with other people. Well, as long as everyone else enjoys it too, that’s what’s important to us. That other people can enjoy it [and] appreciate it.”