Garden Day - sam’s gardens and more!
Garden Day at Maine Mountain Children’s House
On Sunday June 7th, members of the MMCH community gathered together to work on the school’s grounds and gardens. This day is lovingly known as Garden Day, and began in honor of Sam when we created MMCH’s first raised garden beds at MMCH and in area businesses around the community in 2014.
We called these “Sam’s Gardens.” Part of Sam’s original business plan when she started MMCH included having gardens for children to work in and grow food.
How It All Began
Kim Roberts, a former MMCH volunteer and forever dear friend, headed up the Sam’s Gardens initiative, doing all the grunt work from writing grants to gathering the materials needed to build the beds and plant them. With parents and friends from the community, we established community garden beds at MMCH as well as three area businesses.
From there, Kim spent years coordinating a summer watering schedule with families so the gardens could thrive even when staff and students weren’t present. She also created a volunteering plan with Bethany to teach students about seeds, soil, planting, weeding, and harvesting during the school year.
Sam’s Gardens Today
Today, “Sam’s Gardens” can still be found in the neighborhood around MMCH, including at the Kingfield Town Park, Webster Library, next door at Equinox Bodywork, and of course, here in the yard at Maine Mountain Children’s House.
In the spring of 2016, when MMCH had moved to 36 Salem road and experienced their first spring, Garden Day started to evolve from working solely in the gardens, to working all over the school grounds to spruce things up and make improvements for the children.
Today, projects still include planting the garden beds, but they have grown to include weeding all the flower gardens throughout the property, replenishing the sand in the sandbox, spreading wood chips around the play structures, and doing small carpentry projects like putting together shelves or hanging new hardware in the basement. Together we’ve built a sandbox, a small play hut, and a wooden bike rack for the balance bikes and tricycles. This year we started building a sunshade to put over the sandbox area of the yard. It’s not always glamorous work, but it’s work that is crucial to the safety, functionality, and beauty of our outdoor spaces.
Oftentimes Garden Day is rainy. And if it’s not rainy, it’s extremely buggy. Black flies are bumping into our eyes and biting the edges of our ears. And boy, black flies love children :( But regardless of the bug and weather conditions, families and friends always show up. Always, always.
This past Sunday, my family and I made our way over to MMCH. It was another rainy morning so I figured people would be slow-going, but when I arrived at 9:05 there were already 5-10 people working in the outdoor classroom. There was coffee, tea, and snacks set out on the deck and the yard was buzzing with activity. As the day continued we must have had 25 people working around the grounds. A team of dads and kids were putting up posts for a new sun shade. Two other adults took some children with them to get a load of sand for the sandbox. A mother and two young toddlers were planting the ceramic planters we post outside of our entrance gate, and an alumni father and son were taking wagon loads of weeds from our driveway garden to our compost pile. Countless other parents, grandparents, teachers, partners, and children worked together to plant zinnias, herbs, tomatoes, squash and giant pumpkins. They built furniture for the downstairs office, and moved loads of wood chips around the yard that were donated by an alumni family. So much was accomplished and we could see our hard work play out right before our eyes.
Garden day always brings a deep sense of peace and accomplishment when you look around you and see humans of all ages, shapes, and sizes working together to make a better space for our children. Garden Day is a special day for MMCH and for all those that come to participate. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Kim. And thank you to all the past and present teachers, families, and friends who make Garden Day happen year after year.
