Surrey students lend artistic talents to city snowplows
Several of the district’s elementary schools have picked up paint brushes to help decorate City of Surrey snowplows in advance of this year’s winter season.
For the past several years, the city has partnered with elementary schools across the Surrey School District to offer students an opportunity to contribute to their city by decorating the blades on city snowplows. For 2022, 20 schools were selected to take part, each supplied with all the necessary tools and supplies.
"I originally saw a small city in the USA doing this and thought it would be a great idea for Surrey's school kids to get involved," said Ray Kerr, Manager of Engineering Operations at the City of Surrey, adding that it would also help to raise awareness around winter maintenance.
According to Kerr, the city will typically have around 20 plow blades to be painted per year, with designs lasting around one season of use before they need to be redone.
At M.B. Sanford Elementary, students were excited to take part in the program for the first time. 
M.B. Sanford students working on their designs.
“At first the kids were a little confused. I think they thought we would be just ‘painting’ the plow a solid colour,” said M.B. Sanford teacher Jackie Jordan. “Once they understood that we actually get to design and paint pictures on the inside blade, they were so excited. When it was finally delivered, they were super eager to get started.”
Integrating design ideas from the children along with input from the local Indigenous community, Jordan and her students came up with a design meant to reflect the history of the area by using appropriate colours, elements and astrological symbols.
“We were also looking for permission and the proper way to welcome people to M.B. Sanford in the Katzie language and incorporated that into the greeting at the top of our plow,” said Jordan.
“We talked about the fact that we are M.B. Sanford ‘Stars’ so we started to look at pictures of stars, which led to constellations and a short discussion around how the First Nations people used the stars as a map and how they have a number of stories that include the night sky,” she explained. “From there we happened upon a picture of a Medicine Wheel while looking at some First Nations art and we then read what each of the four colours represented and quickly recognized how many things in our lives were represented in groups of four.”
With a plan in mind, the M.B. Sanford students divided the painting of their blade into four different parts, each to have different colour, and went on to add other design elements meant to invoke elements of direction, astronomy, the seasons and details personal to the class itself, such as the moon phases that are currently part of their science unit.
At Forsyth Road Elementary, this year marked the second time the school was able to participate in the program, but it was principal Kam Grewal’s first time taking part.
“At Forsyth Road, we had 50 students involved and each were able to choose a colour and paint a few sections of their choice,” she said.
Forsyth Road's mosaic-styled plow
According to Grewal, students picked the colours for their small sections, resulting in a mosaic-like design with varying shades of blues, greens, reds and purples.
With schools having finished their designs, city workers picked up the blades from the schools.
On top of the painting, participating schools were also given the chance to name the snowplow that will be using their painted scoop, with students asked to submit potential nicknames for the vehicles themselves.
"This is the first time we've done this, and the selected names will actually go on the trucks themselves," explained Kerr, who noted that submissions have so far included names like 'Snowflake' and 'Mr. Plow.'
And while this year’s summer has barely begun, Grewal said students are already looking ahead to the chillier months.
“Students were excited to be able to paint the plow,” she said, adding, “But they’re even more excited for next winter for a chance to see it plowing the streets during a snow day!”
The other elementary schools that participated this year were Lena Shaw, Holly, KB Woodward, W.E. Kinvig, James Ardiel, Hjorth Road, Riverdale, Kirkbride, David Brankin, Cedar Hills, AHP Matthew, Old Yale Road, Cougar Creek, Mary Jane Shannon, Hyland, Bear Creek, T.E. Scott and Georges Vanier.
