Schools
Eagle Cove School Helps Preserve Beachwood History
A bake sale on Saturday will help raise money for the restoration of Beachwood Park.
The will be holding a bake sale Saturday at to raise money for the restoration of Beachwood Park in Pasadena.
Beachwood Park, located on the Magothy River, is a park with a history deeply embedded in the town of Pasadena.
The Baltimore City Paper ran an article in May 2011 that described in great detail the history of Beachwood, a park that was segregated in the 1940s and 1950s.
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According to the City Paper’s article, Beachwood Park was owned by Hiram E. Smith and black people came from all over to Beachwood Park by buses to enjoy the park’s surroundings. Many other parks in the area were off-limits to black people.
Smith lost his property at Beachwood Park in 1963 due to foreclosure, according to the City Paper. Anne Arundel County purchased the park property in 2002, but has been delayed in its restoration due to a lack of funds, which is where Eagle Cove School wanted to help.
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“I got really excited about the idea of Beachwood Park,” said Eagle Cove Head of School Laura Kang. “I felt that it really hit three important parts in our mission statement, which are academic excellence, environmental and community stewardship.”
Students at Eagle Cove have been studying African-American history in class and have done their own research into Beachwood Park’s past.
“It is perfect because they are getting an academic piece of the park from the research they are doing on the history,” said Kang. “They are also going to clean up the park. We are raising money to try and make the park better and we see it as an environmental and historical preservation project.”
The school will be holding a bake sale at Angel’s Food Market Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
“Our parents are amazing bakers” Kang said. “We did one in the fall and it did really well. I think we raised over $400 just from a bake sale.”
Kang said the school plans to take fourth- and fifth-graders to the park in March to start a cleanup project.
“I just think the whole park, with all the history is a really good story,” she said.
