Fun Friday: At the Garden!

By: Ilene Solomon

Fridays are typically filled with fun (yet still educational) activities, in order to expand the kiddo's minds and hearts, and to provide them with more hands-on, experiential ways to learn. Last Friday was no exception! Fun Friday was run by the Garden Team: Lynn, Peter and myself...and with the help of parents who lent us their garden tools (thanks padres!), we all got our hands dirty with our first Garden Day of the new dry season.

The kids getting geared up for X-treme Garden Makeover

With about thirty students--from kinder all the way up to 6th graders--and seven volunteers, we raced out to the back of the salon, home to the Abriendo Mentes garden. Past volunteers and donors helped create a beautiful garden space, but unfortunately, due to the heavy rains of September and October and a horrible iguana attack, the garden looked like it needed some major TLC! Luckily, the students were excited to help. We managed to weed the entire plot plus remove all of the trash! Phew.

Tatiana with her bunch of weeds

But the greatest show of all, was when volunteer and Garden Committee Co-Chair Peter shimmied up the 5 meter tall tree with his travel-sized saw! He helped us trim down the tree to let more light shine in. Afterward, he instructed the big kids in how to safely use his travel-sized axe to chop the branches for the compost pile. One of our older boys, Oscar, was put in charge of showing the other older students how to handle the axe. This was a special moment for Oscar, as he was able to sharpen his leadership capacities...after all, education doesn't just happen in the classroom!

Peter teaching Oscar to use an axe to trim the tree

After about 2 hours of work, the kids were thirsty and the volunteers were tired, so we packed up and called it a day. Next on the garden agenda includes securing the garden beds and re-soiling the area. If you'd like to help support the garden, consider donating to Abriendo Mentes!