Harvest time at Kihei Elementary School Garden!
Nothing is more magical than a child in a garden.
Planting together
If you want to reconnect with the earth, with kids, and feel that you’ve made a difference, just help a second grader plant a tomato — or even better, watch her taste a fresh tomato that she helped to plant, maintain, and harvest. As one little girl said, after her first taste: “That’s a little piece of heaven.”
Last year, my colleagues from South Maui Sustainability and I installed a 10,000 square foot garden at Kihei Elementary School, on Maui. The principal, Mr. Shima, gave us permission to turn a square of lawn, smack in the middle of the campus, into a garden. When we asked who was interested in using the garden, 28 teachers responded. That meant over 500 students would be using the garden. We doubled, then tripled, our planting space. We called upon every hardware, irrigation, and garden vendor on the island to help us — and they did so with a generosity that I still find amazing. We worked ourselves far more hours than we intended. And every one of us agrees that the hours in the garden with the kids made it all worthwhile.
SMS volunteer Kirk Surry with some enthusiastic gardeners
We’re getting ready to do it again this year. We need amendments, more tools, books and other resources, and most of all, volunteers. If you don’t live in South Maui, find a garden near you, and offer help. You’ll find school gardens provide not only nourishment for the body, but also the soul.
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