Fairhill Intergenerational School
Adopt a School Garden Spotlight

Author: Keri Evjy

The education served up daily at the Fairhill Intergenerational School in Cleveland, Ohio, is unlike most others in the United States. During school hours, students in grades K-7 interact, work, and play with elders in their learning programs. The result is a dynamic educational community rich in camaraderie that supports aging purposefully and that nurtures respectful relationships. As their success illustrates, the garden is a perfect venue for adults and students to connect, tell stories, and get their hands dirty.

Created in 1995, The Fairhill Intergenerational Gardening Group (FIGGS) was formed by Director of the Intergenerational Resource Center, Jane Outcalt, in collaboration with neighboring elementary schools, senior volunteers, and the Cleveland Botanical Garden. The purpose of the program was to creatively bring elders and students together to foster relationships through gardening. In the first year, eight children from three schools were matched with eight older adults to seed, weed, and harvest vegetables from eight newly constructed raised beds donated by a local lumber company. As the years went by, more beds, more children, and more senior volunteers were added to the successful venture. Today, the FIGGS maintain 22 beds, including an octagonal pizza bed featuring basil, oregano, thyme, parsley, and green peppers.

Each spring, third graders from local elementary schools and senior volunteers from the community are recruited to participate in weekly sessions during the growing season. As the frosty Ohio winter abates, the volunteers and students sow seeds under grow lights to jumpstart the season. Friendships emerge as gardeners young and old explore worms and composting, “Bugs to Hug and Bugs to Mug”, arts and crafts, and seed-to-harvest activities. Produce picked that day is shared among the volunteers, students, and their relatives. At the end of the season all remaining produce and value-added products made by the students are sold at the local Shaker Square Farmer’s Market. Students practice their math skills and enthuse about their garden experiences while peddling zucchini and tomatoes, pressed flower stationary, herb vinegars, and flower bouquets.

For two years, Summer Sprouts, an outreach program of Ohio State Extension, has provided the FIGGS program with seeds, programmatic support, and help with bed preparation in the spring and fall. Extension staff conduct expert soil testing and give informative workshops throughout the year to the volunteers, mostly Master Gardeners. The volunteers, in turn, maintain their Master Gardener certification by tending the Fairhill garden. An attentive volunteer lives across the street and monitors the garden when school is not in session.

In the fall, the garden program comes full circle as graduates return to help out and volunteer with the third graders, and lessons learned in the garden are passed along to loved ones. The Johnson twins, graduates of FIGGS and now in their first years of college, return to volunteer each summer to share with garden friends how Mother Nature works and to help with the sessions. Outcalt notices improvements in environmental and nutrition literacy in families as siblings participate in the program. Family members with kids in tow pick up their children from the after school program, informally sharing the garden. Younger siblings eagerly anticipate being old enough to participate in the program.

Outcalt reflects that the connection between the students and the volunteers is the life of the Fairhill garden program. Each year they plant potatoes in rubber tires. Over the course of the season, they add more tires to the towers to create more space for the tubers to form. At harvest time, children and volunteers are try to guess how many potatoes are in each of the four towers. Then everyone gathers together to push the tires over and sift through the earth, uncovering potatoes of all sizes, shouting at their finds, laughing and devoutly searching until they have scoured below the soil line. They record their findings and prizes are handed out to those with the most accurate guesses. In the fall, the volunteers and students are recognized in a graduation ceremony. Families are invited and participants take home a framed photo of the garden group as a memento of their time together.

The Fairhill Intergenerational School was also a participant of NGA’s Adopt a School Garden program, receiving funding and horticultural and educational support for their garden program. Smith & Hawken, the adoptive donor, made it possible for FIGGS to receive extra educational programming during the winter, including two trips to the Cleveland Botanic Garden, a Halloween project, and a holiday greens workshop. To learn more about NGA’s Adopt a School Garden Program, click here.

 

 

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