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Schools

Horace Mann PTO Sees Garden as Community Asset

The Horace Mann School PTO is holding a fundraiser this month to support a garden for the school and community to use.

A parent-led initiative to create a community garden for the  has garnered support from the school district and the City Parks Commission, but the PTO is still seeking funds to begin work in the spring.

A fundraising drive running through this Friday, borrowing a Valentine's Day theme, offers long-stemmed roses ($25 per dozen) and heart-shaped pins ($8 each) in exchange for donations. They can be picked up by the general public on Monday, Feb. 14 from 10 a.m.- 2 p.m. at .

The plan to develop a garden at  next to the Horace Mann school, was inspired by a school garden established last spring at the .

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Jen Gukelberger, a parent of a third-grader at Horace Mann and a member of the PTO garden committee, said she and other parents see the garden as a learning opportunity, but also as a way to involve the community and neighbors.

"It really should be a community garden as well," Gukelberger said. "My hope was to offer the community an option to use the beds. The more money we raise, the more beds we can offer."

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She said the committee is hoping to raise between $2,500 and $5,000 to support the garden.

Some funds have been set aside in the Horace Mann budget for the initiative.

"We have a lot of great ideas and high hopes that it will be something that will last," Gukelberger said. "We don't want to do it half-way."

Horace Mann Principal Jeffrey Strasnick said teachers are enthusiastic about the garden and will seek to incorporate it into the curriculum as much as possible.

"We're making so many connections," not only to science curriculum, but also to math, geography, nutrition and history, Strasnick said. 

A similar community garden at Hoover School was first planted last spring, supported entirely from donations from parents, local businesses and the Hoover PTO.

Hoover Principal Dr. Dennet Sidell said the 50-by-46-foot garden—about half the size of the proposed garden for Horace Mann—was planted by the school children and maintained over the summer by local families.

He said the cost was about $700 for the plants, loam and boards for the raised beds. The PTO donated a tool shed at the cost of about $500.

"It took off pretty fast," Sidell said. "The PTO was very generous in donating the shed and other people donated money toward the garden."

All of the vegetables, including more than 700 tomotoes and 10 pounds of beans and peas, were donated to the food pantry on Franklin Street.

"The kids took a lot of pride in the amount of food we donated," Sidell said.

This year, teachers from each grade will work with the principal on integrating the garden into the science curriculum.

Following on the success of the garden at the Hoover, and another at the  School, Gukelberger said she felt it was something that was lacking at Horace Mann.

"I wanted [my daughter] to be exposed to watching something grow and healthy eating," she said. 

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