Planting the Seed

Volunteers Work With Local Students in Hands-On Gardening Class

When 6th-grade students in Bethel Christian Academy’s gardening class dig up potatoes or carrots, it is probably the first experience most of them have had with freshly harvested vegetables.

For 7 years, members of the Wiregrass Master Gardeners have volunteered their time to teach the class and mentor students on how food is grown and how that produce can be used in some of their favorite dishes.

“We had a spaghetti pot this year with the different things that go in spaghetti — tomatoes, basil, oregano, onion, garlic,” says Susie Robbins, 1 of the master gardeners who works with the class.

The gardening class began with planting rows in the ground. They later added raised beds. Bethel Baptist Church members helped by running water lines to service the garden. Students come out to the garden every Tuesday morning, spending an hour working with the plants, says April Wilson, school administrator at Bethel Christian Academy. The lessons they learn, both from caring for the garden as well as interacting with the volunteers, are invaluable.

“They’re learning where their food comes from,” Wilson says. “They’re learning the process of planting and growing, which is full of life lessons, full of these folks investing in this generation, passing that knowledge down to them. It is helping them have eyes outside the classroom, seeing what they’re learning in the classroom in science, and bringing it to life out here. It’s an amazing thing.”

The volunteer mentors with the Wiregrass Master Gardeners were recently selected as Silent Heroes of the Wiregrass, a program sponsored by Wiregrass Electric Cooperative in a partnership with WTVY that honors people who work to help others or make their communities better places.

The group of gardening mentors — Robbins and fellow master gardeners Gail Murphy, Beverly Sorensen, Ron Meadows, and William Ray — were presented a check for $1,000.

“The students are learning valuable, real-world lessons about how food is grown,” says WEC Vice President of Member Services and Communication Stevie Sauls. “Wiregrass Electric is thrilled to honor these gardening mentors and the work they’ve done with Bethel Christian Academy’s students. We hope this program continues for years to come.”