School Garden Makes a Community Proud

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When my eldest daughter (a recent High School graduate) attended the local elementary school, there was a small rose garden near the front entrance. It was the class project of the graduating Calvert Street Elementary fifth graders to take care of the garden and give each rosebush a name. (Just as an aside – when I was growing up we had junior high school and didn’t graduate from elementary school until SIXTH grade – I still don’t understand the concept of middle school where kids are too young to be hanging out with pre-teens and then, when they’re barely pre-teens themselves, sent off to schools filled with full-fledged teenagers.)

Anyway, my daughter was absolutely delighted with the rose garden, which was the only nod to nature found at her school that otherwise floated on a sea of black asphalt.

It was therefore a delight to stumble upon this article and learn that this same school, over the last three years, has been planting shrubs and flower beds and is underway with “an ambitious effort to add more than an acre of grass, a pond habitat with turtles, tadpoles and other native creatures, and eventually an edible garden.”

Sadly, my three girls are too old to go there (my youngest will be entering middle school in just a couple of weeks (thanks to Los Angeles budget cuts they don’t start til mid-Septemeber…don’t get me started..) , though I wish she were going to junior high a year from now! I know they would be beside themselves participating in this project. I know from experience that it doesn’t take much to get kids excited about nature. One of my girls’ favorite annual field trips was to a local farm where they got to pick their own vegetables right out of the ground. (It took my husband, by the way, to figure out how to cook the huge leeks that my youngest eagerly brought home this year.)

But I’m very happy for the little ones who will be enjoying the fruits of their parents’ labors. It was, in fact, the direct intervention of parents that created this wonderful project and their efforts are making it an on-going success.

So far they’ve torn up 180 tons of asphalt around the school and planted more than 60 trees.

No surprise that the “makeover” has attracted more students from the neighborhood who may otherwise be going to private schools or transferring to more inviting public schools with greener campuses.

Thanks to Michelle Obama, programs such as our local school’s and other community gardening ideas are being supported and promoted more vigorously than ever before. I learned that across our city and nation, many schools are helping the green movement by launching eco-friendly gardening projects.

“We have a whole new generation of parents who really want to get involved with their schools, and it’s great because we want the community to own their schools.”  - Ana Lasso who works for the LA School District

Tracy Bartley, one of the moms involved at our neighborhood school agrees and hopes that this will not only be a school revitalization but serve as a community center.

“Public education is so incredibly important, but it is in trouble and for it to survive we need the community,” Bartley said. “I think a garden will bring the community back.”

I did a little googling and found a great site with lots of resource information if you’re thinking of greening your own local school.  Are you involved in a project like this in your neighborhood? I’d love for you to comment and share any ideas and information you may have.

There’s probably at least a small patch of land at your local school that’s suitable for a few veggies or a couple of rosebushes that need a little tender loving care – and maybe a name.  My daughter, by the way, named her rosebush “Susie”.

Tagged as: family, green, healthy lifestyle