ARUNDEL, Maine — For the past three months, students from the Mildred L. Day School in Arundel have worked on opening a new community garden. The interdisciplinary unit is a project that students have been creating in their allied arts classes.
On Friday's the teachers from STEM, physical education, Spanish, music, library, and art came together with the students to create a community garden from the ground up.
Students have created raised garden beds by growing vegetables in hydroponic aero gardens, then they transplanted the plants into bigger pots, built wood frames to place the pots, and decorated the frames with some art work.
The goal of it is to have fresh produce available for community members.
"We transplanted a ton of vegetables, and we are planning on opening the community garden to anyone who needs food," fourth-grader Tyler Levesque said.
"At first we planted in the arrow garden with Mrs. P and the STEM lab, then we went to the gym and we helped build the big area to hold the buckets. After we did that we put some of the tomato plants and the special things they need to grow in. Also in art, we made clay tiles with whatever vegetable or fruit or flower we could put on them," third-grader Eva Raichl said.
It's hard work that will have an impact on the community.
"We took our specialty and taught it to the kids, and all of the sudden we have this beautiful 60-plant garden to give to our community," STEM teacher Denise Dupuis said.
"We also want our community to have enough food to survive and have enough to share and to feed their families and to bring people together," Levesque said when asked what the goal of the community garden was.
The garden is a way to help fight hunger in town.
"Everybody has had a little piece of ownership of it, and they can drive by the school or visit this summer when they come and say, 'I was part of this.' They have huge ownership of it and a sense of pride, which is phenomenal," Jon Woodcock, P.E teacher at the school, said.
Dupuis said they wanted to work on a project that was meaningful to the community.
"Most of Arundel is farming, and that's what probably brought Arundel to get together with people," Levesque added.
The community garden has tomatoes, onions, dill, basil, peppers, lettuce, peas, and other veggies and herbs.
Teachers behind the project said that if community members need fresh herbs or veggies, they can simply stop by and pick just what they need.
The students will open the garden to the community on Friday with a dedication ceremony. They plan on dedicating the garden to the school's principal, who is leaving at the end of the school year, who students, parents, and teachers admire for his hard work in the school.