Students look on as Louise Lippe (second from right), a former teacher at Martin Luther King Elementary School, holds a head of cabbage while Frank Roettinger (right) cuts it from the root in the garden Lippe maintains behind the school. The harvest will help feed the hungry. See story, page 11. EDISON — More than just young minds are being nurtured at the Martin Luther King Elementary School (MLK) in Edison.
Behind the school lies a garden that, under the care of now-retired MLK secondgrade teacher Louise Lippe, who started the garden 10 years ago, teaches children how to grow vegetables that help feed the hungry in the community.
With the help of student volunteers and fellow educator Frank Roettinger, along with a grandmother named Alka Patel, a bountiful harvest of cabbages, beans and tomatoes were picked from the ground July 16 and prepared for delivery to the Hands of Hope Food Pantry and soup kitchen located in St. James Episcopal Church, 1236 Woodbridge Ave. in Edison.
Former Martin Luther King Elementary School teacher Louise Lippe hands off a hefty cabbage to student helper Dev Patel, 8, of Edison. Their harvest will help to feed the hungry. TERRY BOUDREAU “They have 150 families which they help out, so this is a very worthwhile project,” Lippe said.
Because there is no funding for the project, Lippe said she is very grateful for the strong cooperation and support it receives from the Board of Education, which pays for the water and maintenance of the sprinkler system, and the school’s principal, Diane Wilton, who supports the endeavor with fertilizer and Territorial Seed Co.’s seeds. Lippe also credits the school’s grounds crew staff members who till the garden in the fall and spring, and the custodians who mow and weed-whack the exterior to make everything look nice.
Donations from local businesses also help keep the garden growing. Home Depot provides $100 worth of plants each spring, and Patel’s Cash and Carry of Iselin provided a huge box of potatoes to plant, which will grow more potatoes. Bartel’s Garden Center in Clark provides free seeds and advice, and the Bonnie Plant Farm donated cabbages.
In an effort to utilize ground space productively,
Lippe tried an experiment this year — planting cabbages on top of potatoes, since potatoes grow under the ground and cabbages grow above the ground.
“The experiment was to see if both could grow together,” Lippe said. “What you see [in the garden] is evidence that they can. Double production for the same plot of ground, and it worked.”
Lippe said she hopes that with the rain and the heat, which are good for the plants, the garden’s production will last until the end of October.
The garden will produce cabbages and a variety of squash, zucchini, tomatoes, potatoes, beans and flowers.
Lippe’s former students help her take care of the garden and harvest the plants.
“I couldn’t do it without the kids, and luckily they come when I call,” Lippe said.
Student helper Thomas Lim explained why he likes to pitch in.
“It’s not just for the fun of it; it’s also knowing that a small sacrifice of a few hours can help a lot of people,” he said. “All of the food is going to people who are struggling for meals.”
Over the years, Lippe’s enthusiasm for the garden project has inspired her students to grow gardens of their own.
Benshel Bright, 11, said he got his love for gardening in Lippe’s second-grade class and started a garden at home, which he said is very prosperous.
Parminder Kaur, who will be going into sixth grade next year, said she loves gardening but can’t plant one at her family’s home because animals eat the plants.
“Mrs. Lippe has a garden, so it’s letting me do something that I love to do,” Parminder said.
“You can see that it is a concerted effort of the community to make something work,” Lippe said. “When you’ve become an integral part and you reach out, the students [will] come.”