Students and seniors put their green thumbs to work to make the Village of Glendon even more beautiful.
Thanks to a grant through the village, residents and visitors can now enjoy flowers and edible plants along main street and in front of Glendon School.
The Glendon Community Gardening Project had Grade 5 students digging in the dirt alongside seniors on Thursday, May 30.
Coralee Forster, Grade 5 teacher, saw the fund as the perfect opportunity to give her students an activity to do.
Julie Mannion (left) and Rayne Suhai (right) get to work on one of the planters.
”Once a month, we go play cards with the seniors, and... when I saw how well they worked together, I just thought ‘this needs to be expanded a little bit because of the joy on both the seniors faces and the kids faces when they’re playing crib and doing puzzles was just amazing,’” she expressed.
According to Forster, the purpose of the grant “is about community and bringing partnerships together” within the village.
Karen Amalia, president of the Glendon and District Senior Citizens Club, said everyone enjoys the monthly visits, and heading out into the village to garden was no different.
”Too often that... age group doesn’t have much to do with seniors. They find out that we really are fun, vibrant, and we can do things with them,” she explained.
After picking out the plants with the seniors at a local greenhouse, the students worked hard to keep them alive ahead of planting.
Grade 5 student Gracie Ganser was excited to participate.
“I just think it’s fun to go, hang out with friends, seniors, and plants, because I love gardening.”
While at the greenhouse, students learned different aspects important for taking care of the plants.
”Some like to go in the shade and (others like) sunlight,” explained Heidi Kwiatkowski, Grade 5 student. “Some need to go on the north, east, or west side.”
Forster added, “(The kids learned) which flowers were edible, so they’re pretty excited to show their parents which ones are edible, which I thought was a neat takeaway from that. They were amazed at how many flowers you could actually eat.”
As an avid gardener, Forster was thrilled to share her pastime with her students.
”I think it’s a lost art, and kids nowadays don’t always realize where food comes from and where flowers come from. It’s just something assumed that they miraculously show up, so teaching them about even the temperature of water to water them with, how to grow them from seeds, and the importance of nutrients. It also ties in with our wetlands unit and the life cycle of trees.”
Ganser said making Glendon look nice was important because “then it will invite more people” to the community.
