A Garden in Every Palmer/Forks School?

    

In addition to math and spelling, students at March Elementary School on Easton's College Hill will be getting a lesson in gardening this spring.

On Friday, students at the school will begin planting peppers, cherry tomatoes, peas and other vegetables.

With luck, they'll start eating them liking them, and asking their parents to bring them home, said Dr. Meagan Greaga of the Kellyn Foundation, which is overseeing the project.

"We have parents tell us their kid came home and said 'I tried this at school and it was really good,'" Greaga said Monday as the volunteers dug in the dirt outside March to prepare for the gardens.

She's speaking from experience. The March garden is part of an effort by Kellyn to get gardens into all seven Easton area elementary schools.

The foundation is almost halfway there, said Greaga, with gardens already in at Tracy and Forks elementary schools, and another planned for the Cheston school this summer.

Kellyn had pitched the idea to the first two schools, Greaga said. When March saw those gardens succeed, school officials asked the foundation to come to College Hill.

The school community, she said, "embraced it right from the beginning."

Liza Feltimo is part of that community. The parent of two—one at March, one a future March student—Feltimo is a former chef who has her kids garden at home. She hopes other March students will have fun once they start cultivating their own homegrown vegetables.

"It sends the message that growing it yourself isn't a chore," Feltimo said.

And not every kid at March gets the chance to garden at home, said Lauren Wieder, the school nurse.

She said the gardens tie in with a larger program at the school, making sure students get two to three vegetables a week.

In addition to Kellyn's work with schools, the non-profit has also worked with the Easton Area Community Center and Easton Weed & Seed program. Last year, its members planted similar gardens at Centennial Park.