WEBVTT

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[sil.]

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[sil.]

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This is our idea of like starting,
starting small, and growing bigger.

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So, we start with one single person.

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And then, we go on to a group of people.

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And then, we go on to a school.

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And then, a community. And then, the world.

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[music]

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This is our school ground. Lots of cement.

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Busy streets. No fun. We want
to change our school yard.

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[music]

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Welcome to Broadacres School.

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Uh… uh… these are some pictures around the schoolyard,
how it looked before. Instead of all this,

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all these plants, it was just like
all asphalt anad nothing there.

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And this is our courtyard. And as you
can see, here are some baby ducklings

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that we\'ve been taking care of and
the mother. The ducks are wild

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and they came here by themselves. We didn\'t like buy them
and then put them in. They just came by their selves.

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When did you first start?
The whole project,

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umm… the field and the courtyard
took about five to six years

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to actually finish. And then
we\'re still working on it now.

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We had to do 100 projects
from the Seeds Program.

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And when we were done, we got a trophy,

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an environmental trophy
from the Seeds Program.

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Can I see? Is it made of gold? No.
It\'s plastic. But it\'s very honorable

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to get one.

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Well, the first thing you need to do
for, if you\'re making a garden is,

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umm… do plans. You can make it a… a club

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like we have, umm… the Green
Team and Nature Club.

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You can have an assembly
about, umm… asking people

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what they would like or having
a school vote. Well, maybe

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people could get together. Maybe they have some
ideas and they could share them with everybody.

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Please thank the… the children
from Broadacres. The students…

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Thank you. …for showing us
around, for being so hospitable.

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Thank you, Brian. Thank you (inaudible).
Thank you. Yeah. You\'re welcome, sir.

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And Sarah, thank you very much.
No problem. Nice to meet you.

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Nice to meet you too. Thanks for coming.

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I learned that with like a lot of hard work
and motivation, you can build something

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as nice as Broadacres built. I learned
that it\'s… it\'s a lot of work yet, yeah,

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like to garden and I
hope we can do the same.

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Today we\'re having a workshop

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to start changing our school yard.

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[sil.]

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(inaudible). Okay. No, we\'re
just going to look at this side.

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Okay. So, let\'s talk about
what the idea is for this.

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Where do you think, umm…
so, what\'s our plan?

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Maybe we can change the basketball courts
to another place instead of over here.

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Well, that\'s a good idea. Well, I don\'t like all the
asphalt. I mean, there\'s nothing lively about it.

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I mean, it\'s a really good school but, umm… it
would make it even more interesting if it had

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lots of wildlife and stuff like that.
Well, if they\'re making like a plan of

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the schoolyard like this,
like put as many things like

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as you can in like… like all
different kinds of trees and plants,

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and flowers and ponds, and like a lot
of different things on the plan,

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because I think that makes it more of an interesting
schoolyard. Before when we didn\'t have this garden,

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we didn\'t see a lot like we only saw seagulls.
But now, because we have grown the garden

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and all these different
trees, it… it seems to

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attract different birds like the sparrow.
Sparrow, okay.

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That\'s a house sparrow.
Three sparrows today.

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This is going to be the back area, right?
Right. That\'s right.

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So, umm… what this table is going to do
is they\'re going to, you\'re going to

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plan the back area. Tell them what\'s
happening with the garden in the front.

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We\'re extending it right here and
we\'re bringing all the grass

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all the way around here, because we think
it\'s really plain here. So, we\'re,

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umm… making it more green. And we\'re also planning
on having picnic tables here for students

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to eat their lunch outside in the summer, because
there\'s no point of easting inside and it\'s really hot.

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What, what\'s in this area now? These are four squares
and this is a hopscotch and… This is a garbage can.

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Yeah. What, girls, what\'s in this area now? Oh,
(inaudible) nothing. Nothing. Nothing right?

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Completely empty. Not right here.
Right here. The portable?

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It\'s around here. We\'re all right here.
Where are you going to put the basket?

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Maybe we can put them over here.
Yeah. Yeah. Make a survey.

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We asked everyone in the school what
they wanted and everyone wanted grass.

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And the second most wanted, umm…
item was a basketball court.

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They could have two choices
to put a garden on the roof

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or at the playground.

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The schoolyard was so little. So, I guess,

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uh… we moved it ups, up here so then the
kids will have some more room to play with.

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Grass. That\'s all we know. Every
school almost has the same roof,

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but now our roof has… has changed

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to a rooftop garden, instead of a roof.

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[sil.]

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If I… if I wanted a rooftop garden,
I would go talk to talk my teacher.

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And then, I\'m, I\'m sure my teacher
would talk to the principal.

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And then I\'m sure the principal
would talk to, uh… the,

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uh… the Toronto School Board of Education.

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[music]

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And what about using the playground
for any part of school activities?

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Well, in my classroom, a lot of times we get
assigned work from textbooks and stuff.

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And then we have a period to work on it. So I think maybe
on a hot day or something, if there\'s like benches

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and places to work and stuff,
you can maybe like, work,

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work on that like outside instead of being cramped
up in a hot room. My class sometimes does

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story writing and if I\'m allowed to
bring paper and pencils outside,

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I might be able to do
that at a picnic table.

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[music]

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I think working in the
classroom isn\'t as much,

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umm… it will never like stay with me forever because
usually for tests, you just memorize it after you,

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when you have the test you usually forget most of it.
But here, it\'s hands-on work. You experience it,

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so it only stays with you.

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[music]

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Oh, put it in this (inaudible). I know.
Yeah, it is. Okay, zero degrees.

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I know. Mine is zero degrees Celsius.

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Okay. I have minus three.

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Same here. Build an outdoor classroom,

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and use it all year. So now we\'re going

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to keep going. We\'re going to work on the rest of all
the asphalt around the schoolyard this afternoon,

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and come up with a plan. Draw what your
ideas are, what this is going to look like.

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Take this section and do it.
Uh… this is our ideas

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about the east side. Umm… we\'re
going to expand the park

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right up to the, uh…
daycare fence over there.

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And there\'s going to be a stream in the
park and a bridge that which crosses over.

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Okay. Let me put it over here.

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Yeah. Just a second. So, I thought
there was going to be (inaudible)

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ivy over here. That\'s the road.
So there\'s ivy here

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and then right in front of the
ivy, there\'s be, umm… some,

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uh… a little path of flowers.
Something small can start it all.

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You should just start with the
simple idea if you want to like

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do a garden with vegetables or flowers early
or like just if you want to plant a tree,

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or just a little shrub or something. You
should go for it and if it seems that it\'s…

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it\'s almost… it\'s going to take too long and it\'s
going to be impossible, you should just keep going.

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And by the end… by the time you\'re done, it\'ll
look so nice you won\'t regret anything you did.

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Well, right now I\'m just digging in
the hole for the, for the plant.

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The plant is a, is a, a Joe-pye-weed.
Let\'s see how deep?

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Can you make it a little bit wider, a
little bit deeper? And, umm… there\'s like,

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I think there\'s like 20 of them or
something that we have to plant today.

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It\'s not easy work. And
I always have problems

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getting these out. Okay. You know what we\'re going to do?
What? Cup it around your hands. Okay? So, put it like that.

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Turn it. And then? And give it a good whack, and
it should fall gently into your hands. Okay?

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Like this? Yeah. Try and put your fingers
right near, there you go. Now tip it over.

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Well, gently. Now flip it into the hole.
Nice and gently.

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Good. Very good. The only
bad thing about it is,

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umm… a lot of teenagers come through our schoolyard.
They broke the heads off of the sunflowers

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and, umm… they also broke our,

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uh… pumpkins that we\'re growing. If they do wreck it, like you
shouldn\'t be disappointed because you can always make it more.

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They\'ll always grow again and you can
just keep planting more and more.

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Okay. You guys have done an incredible,

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an incredible job. And what we\'re going to do is we\'re
going to take all of these drawings and try and put them

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all together on one, just like
we did with the front garden.

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Here\'s our advice from Queen Mary School.

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Get help from your parents and
teachers to make your garden happen.

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[music] Okay. This is my teacher, Mrs.
Granny, and she\'s the one

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that got everything started. This is my mom. She\'s
a landscape architect. She came to our school

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to help us with the naturalization
program work. Hi. This is Mr. Buster,

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our caretaker, and he helps us
till the garden in the spring.

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This is our principal. He helps make
it possible to have our garden.

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Okay. That\'s going to help.

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Umm… this is my sister and that\'s my dad,

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and we\'re helping take care of the trees
in our school garden. Hi. I\'m Caitlin.

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This is my sister, Julian, and that\'s
my mom back there, and we are weeding.

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[music]

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You can start out like at small and
get bigger, like start as one person

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and then maybe get a bunch of friends. And then
they can tell someone, and pretty soon you have

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a whole community helping you with
like a big naturalization project.

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Faster, faster. If kids want
money for their playground,

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uh… they have to go and talk to, like, people that
have money. If you keep getting the letters that say

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that they don\'t have any, you know, you should
keep… you should still keep trying. We went to

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a foundation and we, we
gave them a presentation.

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And, uh… they, they took it
seriously and I thought,

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I thought they wouldn\'t take it that seriously
because we were kids. But they did take it seriously

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and… and they did give us the money.
We got $9,974.

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There\'s a check right there to prove it.
This is the check.

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It even says right there, $9,974.

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[music]

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[sil.]

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[music]

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It\'s amazing because, you know, it
takes so long but then when it\'s done,

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it\'s so pretty and it just makes you smile.
The good thing is that

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we\'re helping nature. I like it because it\'s better
than the pavement. I mean, it costs a whole lot

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but it\'s still nice.

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[music]

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I want to come back and see

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how it\'s going to turn out. And all
the hard work at the beginning,

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like, all paid off to see
the big, finished product.

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[music]

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[sil.]