New Westminster Secondary School gardening club members are upping their game.
After years of being tucked out of sight by the side of an inner parking lot, where vehicles sometimes backed into their beds, the gardening club is busting out into the open this week with the construction of a brand new community garden.
Starting Wednesday, NWSS’s young gardeners – with help from the school’s carpentry and plumbing students – will double their existing capacity with 14 new cedar beds in a more central location.
After the beds are built, the garden club will invite local kindergarteners and seniors alike to get their hands dirty in them.
“At this school we’re always looking for opportunities,” garden club member Sophie Labrosse told the Record. “We have so many clubs and organizations and motivated students that we’re always looking for opportunities to make our school and community better.”
The project was sparked in the fall when the school secured a $4,000 Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse community garden grant, according to NWSS tech ed teacher Gary Pattern.
He said the school then got another $4,000 worth of free cedar from a lumber company as well as an additional $4,000 Industry Training Authority grant.
Pattern enlisted the help of Grade 12 drafting student Nick Fuller to design the new garden, which will be wheelchair accessible and feature planter boxes, latticework, community benches, a tool shed, water barrels, an irrigation system and compost bins.
But the project has been a real team effort, according to Fuller.
“This project has included a lot more than just drafting for me,” Fuller said. “I’ve had the opportunity to work with a lot of great kids and meet a whole bunch of other people throughout the school.”
The construction of the garden, taking place from April 29 to May 1, will include even more teamwork, as younger students from local elementary and middle schools descend on the site to help build and plant the new beds.
And none of the work will be wasted when the new NWSS is built, thanks to Fuller’s design, which features 4x4 posts that will keep each new bed off the ground.
“I made them so a forklift would be able to come underneath and move them easily,” Fuller said.
For more information on the new NWSS community garden, call the school at 604-517-6220.
