Magic bean seeds gift plant9/13/2023 Gabriella Schmitz, 10, has been involved in the group for five years, since she started at Binkley. “All the group leaders are very nice,” Ocampo added. He also enjoys picking carrots and eating them, catching and releasing butterflies, and planting beans. “I like all the plants around me,” he said. He said during the pandemic he spent a lot of time at home with just his parents. “I like how I’m in nature and I’m not behind the screen,” he said. Some gave their friend a hairstyle full of small garden-picked flowers.Īlejandro Ocampo, 9, a third grader, said this was his first year in seedlings. The girls roamed the garden aisles with their arms extended, groaning, “brains, brains, brains.”Īnother group worked together to concoct a delicious strawberry chocolate mud pie. On that particular day, a group of girls finger painting ceramic pots covered their hands in green paint. Volunteer parents arrange the children into small groups and give them tasks, such as watering the plant beds, weeding, seeding and harvesting.Ībout 20 minutes in, after most tasks have been completed, the kids usually disperse to play or do other activities, like paint rocks, make fairy gardens, play with critters and create colorful flower bouquets for their parents. The kids usually start out with some structure, said Arianna White, the Seedlings’ board president. They picked celery and tomatoes, watered beds of lettuce and put down cardboard and mulch in the walkways to manage weeds. On May 24, about 30 cheery kids got to work in the garden after school got out. She added that the kids get to learn where their food comes from, care for the ecosystem and create a social and emotional connection with the plants they grow.Īnd they absolutely love it. “It’s been a really wonderful, full circle experience,” Herrera said. They raise money through weekly plant stand sales and one big annual plant sale, usually in April. The nonprofit’s organizers are looking to help other schools get their own garden groups started, too. The organizers, which include other parents who volunteer their time, have built gardens for Manzanita Elementary, Village Elementary and Spring Lake Middle, and they support gardens at Sequoia and Madrone elementary schools. Now the nonprofit has several popular after-school garden clubs at Binkley, Whited Elementary and Austin Creek Elementary. I'll just open my own nonprofit for other schools, too.” Herrera, a certified public accountant, thought: “I know how to open a nonprofit. This device is unable to display framed content. Thus, the weekly after-school club began with the help of a teacher, Tasha Lopez. How the seedlings grewĪbout eight years ago, Herrera’s father, Paul Martinez, owner of PDM Landscape and Sonoma Valley Wholesale Nursery, participated in the school’s annual campus beautification day and decided to revitalize the once-neglected Binkley school garden so his grandchildren and their friends could enjoy it.īut he needed people to water it weekly. The crops were tended to by kids in the school’s Seedlings Garden Group, a newly formed nonprofit created by Sara Herrera, a parent who wished to continue a project started by her dad. Those are hot commodities in the school garden and have probably already been devoured. You will not see carrots or strawberries, however. You might try freshly picked fennel, red oak leaf lettuce, mint or Borage Herb, which has edible purple flowers reminiscent of cucumbers. When you walk into the flourishing garden at Binkley Elementary School in Santa Rosa, you will likely be greeted by about 30 kids offering you a taste of their favorite edible plants.
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