KINGSTON — Flowers are starting to bloom, children are outside playing, allergies are starting to make an appearance and area temperatures have made it past 60 degrees: spring has come to Kingston.

And with it gardening.

Just in time, the Gordon Elementary School Parents and Teachers Association will receive a green-thumbed helping hand with its trail plans from the Aloha Wright Grant Committee.

Wright was a longtime member of the Kingston Garden Club, working with the group for about two decades, grant chairperson Jan Hall said.

“She was very concerned about education,” Hall said, adding that Wright wanted to make sure children learned about horticulture.

KGC President Annika Mungy said Wright wanted to start a program that would give money to groups supporting educating children in horticulture. And the Aloha Wright Grant was born.

“(Wright’s) dream was to touch lives,” Mungy said. “Community residents, of course, but children in particular. We developed the program according to her inspiration.”

Sadly, both Hall and Mungy said, Wright did not live to see the first grant named for her awarded. She died May 8, 2005 at the age of 80.

“We think she would have been thrilled,” Hall said.

The grant committee unanimously voted to award $1,000 to the Gordon Elementary project. The funds were raised by the KGC plant sale, which is the club’s primary source of income.

The project, Mungy said, will create a “safety-route-to-school trail/sidewalk.” The trail created will connect with other trail systems, like the Carpenter trail, and will connect to the new Kingston High School and Kingston Junior High.

“Children will be able to walk to school more safely with this project,” Hall said. “It will also benefit the community.”

The grant will also put new plants in the dirt along the 1/4-mile pathway.

“The plants will be primarily native,” Hall said, noting that signage will be added as well to explain the various plant species.

This, Hall said, will help make area students more knowledgeable and aware of their environment.

“I’m personally very grateful to have been in office when the Aloha Wright Committee made their first grant,” Mungy said. “I’m very excited about the number of people that this project will touch for a very long time.”