The Jenkintown Creek Restoration project at Abington Friends School was honored Thursday night with the Excellence in GSI Award, which celebrates high quality design and construction of green stormwater infrastructure.

On the AFS campus, a riparian buffer, two rain gardens and a bioswale have been built along an 850-foot section of the creek, from outside the Lower School, behind the Meeting House and up to Meetinghouse Road.

GSI, as it is known, is environmentally important because it can help reduce flooding and diminish the amount of pollution flowing into waterways from stormwater runoff. The award was given by Green Stormwater Infrastructure Partners, a regional initiative of the Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia.

The Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed Partnership, which submitted the project for the award, has been a longtime partner with AFS Outside in the improvements designed to improve the water quality of the creek.

The project team included AKRF, Cerulean, NAM Planning and Design, ThinkGreen LLC., Ruppert Landscape, NativeScapes, Villanova University and Temple University.

“This is a great example of the power of partnerships, and they way that schools can work with community organizations to benefit their students and the greater community,” said Rosanne Mistretta, AFS Outside director.

The creek restoration project won in the Public Projects category, and was one of three finalists in that category. The other two were Crossroads at Robinson Green at Rowan University and the Taggart Elementary Schoolyard Improvement Project in Philadelphia.