Hawley Elementary School students came together and planted around 300 daffodil bulbs outside the school from Monday, October 28, to Wednesday, October 30.

Over the course of those three days, students across all grades each got a bulb to plant outside the front of the building. By the time spring arrives in March of next year, the daffodils will be in full bloom.

This is not the first time students have planted daffodils around the outside of Hawley. The recent flower planting is actually part of a long-term beautification effort by the Hawley community to help enhance the physical appearance of the school.

Parent volunteer Aaron Cox, who has had several of his children go through Hawley, is one of those people. The project has been an opportunity for him to give back to the community his family has been a part of for so many years. He kickstarted the flower planting project last fall, where he helped students plant 400 daffodil bulbs along the sides of the building and the light posts nearby. Now here he was a year later, ready to help students plant more flowers.

The goal, he said, is to help beautify the school grounds and encourage students to engage in acts of kindness.

“We try to tie it into kindness and how even just a small act of planting a flower can make somebody happy,” Cox explained to The Newtown Bee on October 28.

Different teachers would briefly pull students from their classrooms to go outside and plant flowers. For every group that came outside, Cox excitedly taught them how to properly bury their daffodil bulbs and what makes these flowers special.

Cox said that the wonderful thing about daffodils is that they live for a very long time, even sharing an anecdote that the daffodils his grandma planted at his home are still there 100 years later. This means, he added, that the kids who planted flowers could have kids of their own one day who will grow up and see those same flowers.

“You guys get to plant flowers that boys and girls will see for years and years; that everybody who drives up and down the road will see for years and years,” Cox told students on October 28. “You get to make them happy all from the flowers you guys planted, and that’s something really kind and special.”

This year marks the last one that Cox will help students plant daffodil bulbs, as the last child he has in Hawley is a fourth grader who will leave the school next year. However, he said that he is hopeful for another parent to “take over” in the future, and that there is a tentative plan for more daffodils to be planted along the school’s new story walk next year.

It will only be a matter of time before spring rolls around and any passersby on Church Hill Road, where the school is located, can see the new daffodils blossom in bright and beautiful colors.

Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.