SWAN QUARTER — Mattamuskeet Early College High School is getting a landscaping makeover, thanks to a grant award from NC Beautiful, which encourages landscape projects in North Carolina communities, and Capitol Broadcasting Company.

The school was given 50 azalea plants, as part of NC Beautiful’s 30^th annual Azalea Celebration, to plant on the school grounds for beautification.

“To date, we’ve awarded close to 250,000 plants to over 3,000 non-profit organizations statewide. … It shows what a community-based landscaping project can accomplish,” the organization’s website stated.

Students and faculty have already begun efforts to plant the azaleas, with agriculture-industrial art teacher Charles Ray Spencer’s class preparing the areas to plant, a press release stated. Fran Coleman, wife of MECHS Principal M.D. Coleman, and Spencer’s students will be doing the planting around the school campus.

“We feel very fortunate to have received these azaleas and will use them to improve the aesthetics of our campus,” Principal Coleman said in the release.

Applicants for the grant were given three choices of azaleas from which to choose: low-height, lavender azaleas that grow 2-3 feet in 10 years; medium-height azaleas in red, white and lavender that grow 3-5 feet in 10 years; and tall-height, lavender and pink azaleas that grow 5 feet or more in 10 years.

To encourage recipients of the plants to maintain and care for them, NC Beautiful is offering incentives through the AJ Fletcher Award if a recipient’s azalea project is taken care of for three years, according to the website. The 2015 winners will be eligible for these incentives starting in the spring of 2017.