SAXTONS RIVER — Vermont Academy is helping celebrate Earth Day this year by helping kick off phase two of the Saxtons River Elementary School Community Garden on Monday, April 22, starting at 9:30 a.m., on the elementary school grounds.
Phase one of the garden was completed in November 2012. Then, a group of students and adults representing both schools joined together to build, fill, and partially plant three large raised beds.
Now an additional three raised beds will be built, filled, and planted. Upon completion of the six beds, each of the K-5 classes will take responsibility for a bed. With the help and direction of their teachers and parents, Vermont Academy students, and community volunteers, the children will plan, plant, and tend these beds, and feed their knowledge about growing their own food.
Students involved in phase one suggested they looked forward to seeing their work take root and flourish.
“It [building the beds] was very fun and I was proud. A community garden makes our schoolyard pretty,” said fourth-grader Layla Maiocco.
Layla's brothers, Charles and Jackson, said they were happy to grow produce to use in the school lunch program.
Vermont Academy sophomore Mary Anderson said the garden “is really important to me because it's a great way to come together with other community members and learn how we can make a difference.”
Saxtons River School teachers say they are planning to connect their curriculum to the garden.
Fifth-grade teacher Wendy O'Dette-Jordan, for example, said students in her fall social studies unit will plant traditional Native American crops and various herbs the Colonists brought with them. She also said she looks forward to partnering with Vermont Academy student mentors.
Materials and labor were sourced from Applewood Custom Sawing in Putney; Pinnacle View of Walpole, N.H.; Erskine R. B. Inc. in Chester; Bazin Farm in Westminster; Walter Kesek in Saxtons River; and Vermont Academy.
The Saxtons River Community Garden committee, a member of the Greater Falls Community Garden Collaborative, said in a press statement it hopes this will be the start of a larger garden that will afford space to promote community, connect people-especially children-to a food source, and raise crops.
The committee said it is seeking community members to partner with elementary school classes to plant and maintain the garden plots. It also said it encourages interested community members who lack gardening space where they live to join a community garden plot.