Fundraiser lets school’s Edible Garden bloom

A link to "The Seed Lady of Watts" in Los Angeles

By: Hilary Parker
   Like the plants that will someday flourish in its beds, the idea for a garden often takes a little time to germinate. Sometimes, the idea sprouts before the seeds have even been planted, growing and blossoming like zucchini vines in midsummer glory.
   The Edible Garden at Community Park School is just such an idea, already blooming although the garden itself is currently no more than a fence surrounding a cleared plot of land.
   On Saturday, children, parents and community volunteers participated in a fundraiser at Small World Coffee, offering bars of organic soap in thanks for donations made to support the Community Park garden.
   The fundraiser was spearheaded by Princeton resident Fran McManus, director of marketing at Whole Earth Center and co-owner of Eating Fresh Publications.
   She conceived the idea after hearing Anna Marie Carter — "The Seed Lady of Watts" — speak about the Watts Garden Club in Los Angeles. There, in the housing projects, Ms. Carter works with her students to grow not only plants, but small businesses and self-sufficiency as well. Her students create the soaps and sell them to support their community.
   "I approached her afterward and said, ‘We’re working on some school gardens in Princeton,’" Ms. McManus said, and the two women decided the soaps would be a great way to establish the initial connection. Six area businesses — Small World Coffee, Whole Earth Center, Eating Fresh Publications, jaZams, Terra Momo and The Bent Spoon — purchased and donated 200 bars of soap for the fundraiser, and the labels featured the artwork of Community Park students, like Emma Cosaboom.
   "I just like the idea of making fresh food in the school instead of bought food," said Emma, a second-grader and daughter of Small World owners Jessica Durrie and Brant Cosaboom. Dressed in blue Princeton School Gardens T-shirts, Emma and her schoolmates took turns collecting donations inside and explaining their projects to passers-by on the sidewalk in front of the café.
   In addition to the 200 bars purchased by local business owners, the children in the Watts Garden Club donated 100 bars to help Princeton’s children, though the bars did not arrive in time for use in Saturday’s fundraiser. Nonetheless, a total of $1,501.40 was raised at the Saturday event, all of which will go toward the Community Park garden. The children in Watts also sent along a packet of pumpkin seeds and planting instructions, and they hope to have a "friendly competition," according to Ms. McManus, for the largest pumpkin (some reach 500 pounds).
   "The real objective is for everyone to save their seeds (from the pumpkins they grow this year) and send them out to a whole bunch of other gardens," Ms. McManus said, thereby connecting school gardens throughout the country through plants themselves.
   While the idea for a garden at Community Park has been in the works for years, according to Principal Sharon Goldman, the garden itself is still in the planning stages. She said she hopes children will have the opportunity to plant at some point this year, and she will meet with parents and teachers today at 3:15 p.m. to discuss the garden and its curricular connections.
   "This is something that can be translated to every content area," Ms. Goldman said, from science lessons about weather conditions to mathematics lessons in measurement to language and visual arts projects. At the same time, the connection with the Watts Garden Club adds yet another dimension to the already bountiful project.
   "It’s wonderful when there’s a national connection and children can see that children their age in another state far across the country are involved in the same activities they’re involved in," she said.
   Even just across town, children are involved in similar projects at the other Princeton elementary schools. A completed garden at Riverside School is flourishing under the care of Dorothy Mullen and a "pizza garden" containing herbs is already growing at Littlebrook School, where children in the Do Something club planted two fruit trees just last week. There is also a small garden at Riverside in the courtyard.
   "I just support the concept," said Ms. Durrie, who hosted Saturday’s fundraiser and donated her 2005 Entrepreneur of the Year Award from the Princeton Regional Chamber of Commerce to the Community Park PTO to go toward the garden. "A lot of parents in the school have been wanting to get this off the ground, and it feels like it’s finally breaking through."