McMillen’s crew, Ripley Garden Club invest in Garden of Hope
The Garden of Hope at Millersburg Elementary got some help from both the West Holmes buildings and trades class, which built and installed a new garden box, as well as the members of Ripley Garden Club, which purchased the wood to create the box.
The Garden of Hope at Millersburg Elementary got a nice facelift on Tuesday, May 17 when a crew from West Holmes High School’s buildings and trades class visited and built and replaced a rotting vegetable garden bed box.
The Garden of Hope was created by Millersburg Elementary speech therapist Lynda Park and special education teacher Janet Yoder several years ago as a way for their students to invest their time and energy into planting and raising vegetables and flowers. The nook in the school’s north side quickly took on plenty of meaning for Yoder and Park and the students, and it has since grown into much more than they ever dreamed it would be.
“It’s become a passion and a blessing to many,” Park said of the Garden of Hope.
The recent box bed project took an investment of $370 in cedar lumber, which matches the garden bed box the group built last year after that one had rotted away. While the price of lumber has soared in recent months, that didn’t deter the Ripley Garden Club from coming through with the financial support to purchase it, just like it did last year.
Park said the garden club members asked her how they could once again team up with Garden of Hope’s mission of growing vegetables and sharing them locally, some of them at the Love Center Food Pantry in Millersburg. The two parties quickly agreed to move forward with the bed project, which was good because Park said her class had 20 tomato plants ready to be transplanted into the newly rebuilt garden box.
That left it up to the buildings and trades class members to go to work, first building the garden bed box and then transporting it to the Garden of Hope, where McMillen and several members of the class went to work digging out the old bed, rearranging some dirt and putting the new bed in place.
“It’s a good opportunity for our kids to develop their work skills and get experience building, but the big thing is that it is teaching them to give back to their community in service,” West Holmes High School buildings and trades teacher Dave McMillen said. “It’s a pretty simple project for our seniors, and they did a great job, but I like the community-service aspect of this project.
“This garden is special. It lets Lynda’s kids get outside and dig in the dirt and make things grow, and in turn they share with the community too, so it’s a great thing all around.”
Park gets emotional when talking about the possibilities and opportunities the garden presents, and with the new garden box bed in place, the fruits of McMillen’s class will soon be seen.
When school ends on May 27, Park and Yoder will continue to groom the garden through their summer garden club, where they invite students to return, as well as adults from Lynn Hope Industries. They will weed, plant, harvest or do whatever they can to enhance the garden, and community groups provide meals for each of the club gatherings, which take place twice a month.
“It has blossomed into a project that is much larger than one or two people can handle,” Park said. “We need all the helpers we can get, and it has been so wonderful to see many community groups like Mr. McMillen’s class get involved and help us out. It’s their garden too.”
Park said another asset from the garden is her kids can learn skills they can carry with them into the future and possibly even toward a career.
“Our kids have grown in so many ways in caring for this garden, and we are so grateful to our community for allowing us to make this garden grow,” Park said.
In addition to the garden bed box, the class also erected a pair of 4-by-6-foot communication boards — one in the garden, another by the elementary playground — that will allow children with limited communication skills to better communicate by pointing to certain objects on the boards. The signs will be made of wood with a Plexiglas covering to keep them clean.
Park said that became a necessity because her students with developmental disabilities who use talking machines to communicate can’t use those devices in the garden or on the playground.
“Kids can’t bring their communication boards outside because they would get broken, and these signs will go a long way in allowing our nonverbal students to successfully communicate with others,” Park said. “The nice thing about the sign at the playground is that our playground is used by people throughout our community, so it will also serve others with disabilities to get use out of them.”
Those two boards are sponsored by Holmes County Share-A-Christmas and the Millersburg Lions Club, and the 2022 West Holmes senior class also donated to the project.
“This garden has been an incredible community project that extends beyond just our school,” Park said.