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By: Joan Geary of the Keene Sentinel - June 4, 2006 edition
The stillness of the tranquil hilltop courtyard behind the Hayden Medical Residence at Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center in Greenfield is suddenly transformed by a rush of students.
They make a beeline to six newly constructed, 8-foot-long, wheelchair-accessible raised garden beds, and eagerly get to work.
"I helped put the soil in, and put the boards on for the sides of the beds," says Carl, a Crotched Mountain School student. "It's fun."
"I like it," says 8th-grader Eric Bergeron of Antrim's Great Brook School, noting that in addition to gardening and helping out Crotched Mountain students, he's ready to stain the lumber.
Kevin, another Crotched Mountain student, points to the potted sunflowers and describes the vegetable seedlings - peas, cabbage, peppers and onions among others - that he has helped plant in the beds.
"It looks nice," he says.
The collaborative organic gardening program between Antrim's Great Brook School, a public school, and Crotched Mountain School, a private residential and day facility for children with severe disabilities is part of the Cornucopia Project, conceived by Hancock resident Kin Schilling.
Designed to promote nutrition through building greenhouses and organic gardens in schools throughout the Monadnock region, the project involves children in planting, growing, harvesting and eating the food they have grown.
"It's happening all over the country, and I wanted to bring it to the Monadnock area because that's where I live," Schilling says.
A lifelong organic gardener, Schilling says she's always been concerned about children's health and is alarmed by nationally escalating rates in childhood obesity and diabetes.
"I just want to change the way kids eat. It's about helping children make healthy food choices."
In November 2005, Schilling, a former organic cook at Peterborough's The Well School, flew to California to meet with Alice Waters, promoter of healthy foods in schools, who transformed an acre parking lot at the town of Berkeley's Martin Luther King school into a garden for children. Inspired by their conversation, Schilling returned home to promote her dream.
Her collaboration with the Crotched Mountain School began when Jan Holland, Director of the Rehabilitation Center's TRUST Center (Transforming Relationships with Understanding, Support & Teaching) overheard Schilling sharing her vision with others at a party, and arranged a meeting between her and Crotched Mountain president, Don Shumway.
Holland says Schilling is passionate about bringing children into gardening, and that her vision is in line with a Crotched Mountain goal.
"We want to have communities of mutual support, sustainability that reaches beyond the top of the mountain. We want to grow enough food to supply other parts of the community, not just those who live at the top of the mountain, with organic gardening," she says.
The Crotched Mountain-Great Brook collaboration was already in place, put together by Betsy DiPrima in 2003 as a student partnership program, originally to promote social interaction.
DiPrima worked at Great Brook while an undergraduate, and later was employed by Crotched Mountain during an Antioch New England Graduate School internship.
Coordinated by Great Brook's extended learning program teacher Kathleen Bigford, and her Crotched Mountain School counterpart, Denise Desbiens, Antrim students are transported by Crotched Mountain School to the site twice a week, and have worked as partners and peer mentors with Crotched Mountain children building a tree house and making maple syrup.
The Cornucopia Project was a welcome addition.
"Anything experiential for our children makes sense," says Holland. "And planting, growing, harvesting and eating makes sense. This project is about helping kids make sense of the world, and life; and make a meaningful contribution - not always being on the receiving end of someone else's care or support."
Fifteen middle school students from Great Brook's Extended Learning Program grew seeds in their greenhouse this winter. The seeds recently were transplanted to the raised beds at the Crotched Mountain School garden, with both groups of children working together to replant the seedlings.
Schilling built the raised beds with the help of students. Area businesses also assisted: Peterborough's Belletete's Hardware donated the lumber; compost was given by Ideal Compost of Peterborough; an additional four cubic yards of soil was furnished by the Peterborough Lion's Club; and Edmonds Hardware in Antrim provided environmentally friendly stain.
Schilling found pots for the sunflowers at a yard sale for free. A $500 state grant provided brochures in exchange for a talk about the project at Peterborough's Children and the Arts Center.
The young gardeners continue the work throughout the growing process. Though most Antrim students will finish with the program at the end of the school year, the Crotched Mountain students will eat the food they have grown after harvest, says Schilling. Surplus, if any, will be sold at a farmer's market at Crotched Mountain School.
The garden will be used as a center of example for other schools, says Schilling. She plans to continue and expand the project at Crotched Mountain School.
One Crotched Mountain School student may best articulate the success of the pilot program.
"I hope it's done again next year," says Carl. "I need more experience constructing flower beds."
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