The youth education sessions were so much fun for children and adults at Patchwork Central and Salvation Army that the group decided to take their props and skills on the road. Easterseals Early Learning Center was the next venue.
The Center’s gardens were up and running thanks to the leadership of Gina and James Downs and many SWIMGA volunteers in the spring of 2021. The educational programs began in July 2021 when SWIMGA volunteers met with 4 and 5-year-old students to experience a variety of topics.
The first topic was bees. Rob Geiss acted and told the children all about raising bees. Karen Assenza, Kenita Ball, Rita Wedig, and others created a tasting evaluation, where the children compared Honey with fake honey.
In the second education program, MG volunteers helped students plant zinnia seeds to take home while Terry Campbell and Diane Mason introduced vermicomposting to the children. Some of the children were excited to hold the worms while others held back.
The next learning session included the lifecycle of the butterfly. Everyone had fun watching actors pretend to be butterflies. The children had been exposed to Karen Assenza’s butterfly farm with caterpillars, chrysalis, and butterflies for several weeks prior to the education program. After the lesson, students visited the garden and imitated pollinators by fluttering from bloom to bloom. Tony Buccilli donated the zinnias for both Patchwork and Easterseals, thus we had blooms!
During the fourth lesson, the children made earth bracelets with colored beads representing different aspects of the ecosystem. They took home their bracelets to remind themselves of everything they had experienced from planting seeds, watching the plants grow, to seeing insects pollinating flowers. It was a delight to spend time with the children in the classroom and the garden watching them play and grow.
The last session at the Center was Roger and Denise Lynch’s dramatization of the “Three Sisters”. The children loved the animation.
]The 2020 Leadership Conference on Cultivating Our Diversity was cancelled due to COVID-19. Those who had spent a lot of time on the questions, objectives, and program did not want the effort to go to waste. So they developed five questions and named focus groups and members to develop recommendations. The five focus group questions were these:
- How can SWIMGA increase ethnic diversity and what community groups would we partner with to develop projects?
- How can SWIMGA increase age diversity in the group (especially younger MG)?
- How can SWIMGA provide more gardening opportunities for people with mobility and accessibility barriers?
- How can we increase the diversity of educational experiences offered by SWIMGA and what topics would be of interest in the Promised Zone or downtown?
- At what specific locations can we conduct education projects and coordinate in the development of gardening projects, what ones can we use in existing SWIMGA gardens; and what pilot projects would need to be developed?
35+ Master Gardeners contributed to the focus groups on diversity. They were able to put together a plan that not only combines the 2017 Strategic Plan, but also, the recommendations from the focus group questions. They proposed several projects for 2021 and 2022; however three of the recommendations were actually accomplished this year. They are as follows:
- The Youth Education Committee formed in 2017 has been broadened to include Diversity, ie. Youth Education and Diversity with Co-chairs, Rita Wedig and Diane Mason.
- The new project, “Easterseals Early Learning Center” has been approved by the SWIMGA board and general meeting attendees. This project serves all children including those with physical and mental challenges. Thus their raised beds are equipped to handle wheelchairs.
- Internet classes were utilized this fall for the MG class, thus another recommendation accomplished.
The Easterseals Early Learning Center had been in touch with SWIMGA over the past several years to try and get a garden project off the ground. The Easterseals garden was approved in 2020, with Intern Gina Downs heading up the effort. The goal for the year was to bring the garden into a state of safety and a clean slate for planting in spring of 2021. It was over run with weeds and over grown limbs and lacking the proper fencing for child safety.
As Easterseals has a good relationship with The Home Depot, SWIMGA reached out to them to request material donations to get this project started. They have agreed to supply a number of donations and are excited about the garden’s purpose.
For those of you who don’t know, ELC is not only a daycare facility, they also provide rehab services for children infant to five years old. The garden will be safe and inclusive for all the children’s ability and mobility. There will be a full sensory garden to include vegetables that can be eaten straight from the garden as well as a pollinator garden, with a special request for sunflowers! Weather dependent, each class will get to spend time in the garden multiple times per week, helping maintain the beds, watering the plants, and finally eating the fruits of their labor. Educational programs will be incorporated into the garden to teach the children more about the plants they are growing and why it is important.
The garden is located at 621 S Cullen Ave on the eastside of Evansville. If you have ever been to the Crescent Room for an event, the garden is to the northwest corner of that parking lot.
