During halftime at Jupiter High’s home football game on Sept. 7, the Perry J. Cohen Foundation presented a $310,000 check to the Jupiter High Environmental Research and Field Studies Academy. This donation was the final monetary push for the creation of a wetlands habitat and outdoor classroom on school grounds.

“We at JERFSA are so thankful and humbled for the generous donation from the PJCF. When finalized, the Wetlands Project will serve not only the JHS community, but the entire Town of Jupiter,” Environmental Academy teacher Kim Jalm said.

On the morning of July 24, 2015, longtime friends Perry Cohen and Austin Stephanos set out for a fishing excursion, but never returned. The tragedy struck just two weeks before the boys were to begin their freshman year of high school.

Perry’s mother, Pamela Cohen, established the Perry J. Cohen Foundation with Perry’s stepfather, Nicholas Korniloff, to carry on Perry’s legacy and to support what he was most passionate about: environmental, marine and wildlife education and preservation. As a result of this passion, Cohen was accepted into Jupiter High’s Environmental Academy, a four-year magnet program emphasizing conservation and ecological studies.

“Every time he was at the beach, he would bring home garbage, and for many years he went [to] an environmental studies’ camp in Jensen Beach where he learned how important…it is to take care of [the] environment,” Pamela Cohen, Perry’s mother, told The Palm Beach Post.

With the donation, the Perry J. Cohen Wetlands Laboratory and outdoor classroom, complete with a retention pond, will be finished by the end of this school year, when Cohen would have graduated.  Ten of South Fla.’s ecosystems will be represented in the outdoor classroom, where Environmental Academy students will get hands-on learning experience.

Of the money given, $210,000 is coming from the Foundation, while $100,000 is made up of contributions from the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, the Miami Dolphins Foundation, Art Miami LLC and the Telvi Family.