Bardstown Police Department donates confiscated grow lamps to Nelson County High School

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - The Bardstown Police Department is hoping to turn a drug bust into new curriculum.

Their narcotics unit conducted a search warrant on someone growing marijuana indoors, with BPD confiscating several growing lights. Now, since there’s been a conviction, the department is donating the lights to a local high school.

The Bardstown Police Departments says they usually crush the confiscated items they get and send them to the landfill.

However, with grow lamps being so costly, they decided to donate the lights to Nelson County High School to help with the expansion of their AG program.

“Anytime you can save something like that you realize it has a value other than the illegitimate use that it was being purposed for,” Bardstown Police Department Assistant Chief Maj. Kevin Thompson said. “Plus, it helps the kids.”

The lights could help give students hands on experience with their classroom lessons and give them state of the art equipment to work on special projects and businesses.

“So knowing that we will be putting this to use, and knowing that our students will have more opportunities to learn about horticulture and horticulture technology is obviously exciting as an instructor to know that’s going to take a financial burden off of us and let our kids have an opportunity to work with new things,” Nelson County High School AG Teacher Claire West said.

Senior Cecelia Rogers works as a paid lead in the greenhouse and says the new lights will potentially help create new life for students to work with.

“I was thrilled because it’s more equipment that we are able to use for education and producing our plants,” Rogers said. “Which is always awesome because all this stuff is very expensive so it’s always awesome to have community partnerships that will provide you with different things to further education.”

The students are hoping to turn a negative into a positive to grow their vegetable products and use them to create profit for their program in their annual Greenhouse Sale.

“Being able to use these grow lights to produce more product will allow us to be able to put them out in the community,” Rogers said. “For all of our flowers and stuff and for them to get their proper conditions will be awesome. It will increase our profits with our Greenhouse Sale, and in turn increase the opportunities we’re able to give our students in the AG program.”

Both West and Major Thompson believe the collaboration encompasses the Nelson County community as whole.

“There’s power in community, and I think here in Nelson County we have a focus on people, place and purpose and I think our police department looking for a way to create some positivity is always welcome,” West said. “And again for all of our students to have positive links to leaders in our community.”

“Any sort of positive relationship that we can build with kids we think will play a positive role in the future,” Thompson said. “It will make for less crime, create better citizens and will allow them to see the good side of policing.”

Now while the Bardstown Police Department did donate these lights to Nelson County High School, they cannot officially accept them pending a vote by the school board.

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