The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
GARDEN CLUB GIVES GREEN THUMBS
Children get chance to learn about the plants in the world
Introducing children to new types of vegetables and showing them the importance of healthy eating habits, are two of the main objectives of the Grow With Me Garden Club offered through the Boys and Girls Club of Lorain County.
The weekly program and garden are housed at the Boys and Girls Club Westview Terrace standalone facility, located at 2218 W. 24th St. in Lorain, in the heart of the Westview apartments offered through the Lorain Metropolitan Housing Authority.
Amy Basinski, human resources manager with Symrise, said a collaboration among the Housing Authority, the Boys and Girls Club and Symrise are what make the Garden Club possible.
Symrise is “a leading provider of fragrances, flavors, active ingredients and aroma chemicals as well as sensorial and nutritional solutions for the perfume, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, food, beverage, pet food and baby food industries,” according to the company’s website.
Basinski, said the business is based in New Jersey, but the Elyria office works with the Boys and
“every year, we try to plant something new. ” — Shelly Hill
Girls Club and serves as the sponsor of the garden program.
“This is our fourth season,” she said, noting that the first garden was planted in 2012.
Shelly Hill has worked alongside Basinski for the last four years and serves as the program director for Grow With Me.
Hill has her own business called Garden of Thought and serves as a consultant for both the Boys and Girls Club and the Housing Authority.
The garden is located behind the facility on West 24th Street and includes gords, grapes, yellow beans, cucumbers, pumpkins, raspberries, watermelon, celery and a variety of peppers and tomatoes. Flowers, as well as fresh herbs, also can be found in the garden.
“It’s kind of like a hidden treasure,” Hill said. “Every year, we try to plant something new. We grow flowers because we do a flower arranging class. We want them to learn other professions.”
The theme of the club this year is colors of the rainbow, so the garden contains all seven colors in the rainbow, Hill said. The group meets every Wednesday from May through October and a spotlight vegetable is featured each week.
Once school starts, the club becomes an after-school program.
On July 27, the spotlight produce was tomatoes. The children started in the garden by watering the plants, weeding and removing the dead parts and picking the ripe fruits and vegetables.
Basinski said the plants used to be grown in plots, directly in the soil, but through trial and error, it was learned growing the produce in wooden boxes produced more and were easier for the children to manage.
The boxes are numbered so Hill can assign the children which ones to take care of when working as a group.
Practices learned in the garden are then reinforced in the classroom, Hill said. This week, the children learned the difference between certain types of tomatoes and created salsa.
Jeffrey Baker, 11, of Lorain, said he enjoys participating in Grow With Me.
“I like how we get to try new things in the garden club,” Jeffrey said, adding that he liked the herbal butter the group created.
Chrissy Castro, 10, of Lorain, said she likes that she gets to pick fruits and vegetables to eat.
“We can take it home and try new vegetables,” Chrissy said.
Basinski said the produce also is shared with residents in the community.
“We went and visited all of the sites and we saw this location serviced the largest need in the community,” she said.
Some of the goals of the Garden Club are to teach youngsters valuable life skills and show them healthy snacks they can make after they get home from school. All of the recipes used during Garden Club gatherings are children-friendly, Hill said.
About 20 children participate in the Grow With Me Garden Club, but Basinski said the group is preparing to expand. In the fall, a new garden will be constructed at the Boys and Girls Club Desich Family Campus, located at 4111 Pearl Ave. in Lorain.
The Desich Family facility serves roughly 100 children and Hill will run the program at that facility, as well.
“We’re so proud of it, it’s overwhelming,” Basinski said.