A community garden that educates the whole child

A Glassboro elementary school hoping to take learning outdoors has evolved into a community garden and food source for students and residents

The Dorothy L. Bullock School in Glassboro will be celebrating the second anniversary for its successful community garden in May, a project that inspired the district to begin the process of installing gardens in every school, as well as the community, this year.

Sonya Harris, a special education teacher at the Bullock School, retold the story of how the community garden evolved from a hope for a few butterfly bushes and tomatoes to get kids learning outside of the classroom, to a resource that provides fresh food to a community and provides extensive learning in all areas of curriculum.

“We were in a meeting with our former principal, and we were talking about when we used to do garden lessons with our special needs classes and how much fun it was, and I looked at him and said, ‘we should do that, we should garden,’ and he said OK,” Harris said.

Harris, a fan of the show Yard Crashers on the DIY channel, followed the host Ahmed Hassan on Facebook, sent him a message that night and asked if he has ever done charity or volunteer work, as they were a school looking to create a garden for their students. To her surprise, he responded with his cell phone number.

“He said, ‘what are you looking for?’ and I said, ‘I don’t know, a garden,’ and he said, ‘well, what kind of garden,’ and I said, ‘I don’t know, just a garden,’ and he asked ‘what do you want to grow,’ and I said, ‘I don’t know, tomatoes?’” Harris said. “I didn’t even have houseplants because if I touched it, I’d kill it. So, he gave me some homework, I did some research, and then met up with some people back here at school and decided to start the school garden.”

Harris and a couple of her colleagues met Hassan later at a local home show where he introduced them to who would later be their landscaper, Mike Pasquarello from Elite Landscaping in Berlin.

“About a month later, he called me back and said, ‘you know, talking to you guys, listening to you, you guys are really passionate about doing this for your kids. I’m going to help you guys; I’m going to crash it,’” Harris said. “So, Mike Pasquarello designed the garden, and in May, Ahmed showed up with all kinds of friends from around the country.”

The fully organic garden, which offers shade beds, sun beds and raised beds, grows various types of vegetables, fruits and herbs such as blueberries, strawberries, fig, lavender, oregano, radishes, carrots, onions, kale and more. According to Harris, the garden belongs to the students.

“The kids are protective of their garden,” Harris said. “If someone is in the garden, they’ll come and ask, ‘who’s here,’ because it belongs to them.”

Students in first and second grade participate in Wellness Wednesday, where a member of Americorps will present wellness lessons with students such as cooking, learning to make something healthy out of fresh food you can grow. Third-grade students have gardening classes where they learn to plant vegetables such as spinach and lettuce.

“This educates the whole child. We’re taking care of their health, their spirit, and it fits into every aspect of the curriculum,” Harris said.

Every spring and fall, author and horticulturalist Brie Arthur stops into the school for a couple of days to spend time with the students and educate them on plants and vegetables in their garden.

“We look at this now and say, we can be inspiring children to go into a different area that they never thought was possible before,” Harris said. “There are kids now saying they want to be a landscaper, grow plants; they’re using words like cultivars so much that even I had to look it up one day. They listen when these professionals talk, they’re soaking it up and they’re getting biology, botany and even learning about insects with entomology.”

Students have been inspired to start their own gardens at home, something second grader Ethan Bucci was eager to do last year.

“My favorite thing I grew was lemon tomatoes,” Bucci said. “We also had regular tomatoes and we had strawberries. We had sunflowers, cucumbers and peppers — yellow, green, red and orange.”

In the summer, the kids continue to take care of the garden. When a teacher will be present, an email-blast is sent to parents who have signed up, and the children will weed, plant, water and even have a bite to eat.

“We have kids that this is their meal. When they eat, it’s in school. So, we can be a food source. There are times when we are here in the summer and kids come by to take some blueberries for breakfast, or some elderly come to get cabbage and different greens and tomatoes to cook,” Harris said. “This garden has really taken a life of its own. The kids have grown and we’ve grown because they’ve inspired us to make sure this is more than just a pretty function that is outside. They’ve inspired us to make this something bigger because it belongs to them.”

The garden is not funded in any way by the school district, according to Harris. The garden is sustained entirely by fundraising and donations.

“We have had community members contact us, or their kids will come to school with a check saying this is just for the garden, or other members will contact the school and ask how to contribute to the garden,” Harris said. “It literally is the community garden, it just happens to be at Bullock.”

Inspired by the success of the Bullock community garden, all schools in the Glassboro Public Schools District will soon be installing their own gardens.

“Our superintendent has been a constant supporter, so much so that him and the board wrote into the Glassboro strategic plan to have gardens in all schools and to be Sustainable Jersey certified,” Harris said. “It’s so amazing to have the belief from the top, all the way down, of how important this is.”

In an effort to continue availability to the community, the garden does not, and will not, have a fence. Although the space has had vandalism in the past, Harris believes it is best to keep the garden open to encourage community involvement.

“It was a good lesson to teach kids that when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade,” Harris said on the vandalism. “A fence means keep-out. This is a community space, and we are open to anyone who needs anything we can provide here.”

For more information on the Bullock Children’s Garden, visit http://www.glassboroschools.us/Page/5168.