COMMUNITY GARDEN
ENTERS ITS SECOND
YEAR OF PLANTING
T
he Lincoln Community Garden is now in its second year
of growing, with the harvest being donated to the South
Hills Interfaith Movement’s Food Pantry.
This year’s garden features a variety of vegetables, including
tomatoes, zucchini, kale, cucumbers, beans and chard, to name a
few. Lincoln students started the plants by planting seeds in their
classrooms and tending to the plants until they were large enough
and it was warm enough to plant them outside in the garden.
The garden was readied for planting in April, thanks to the
volunteers who were generous with their time on Mister Rogers’ Be
My Neighbor Day. Volunteers will periodically visit the Garden over
the summer to make sure it is watered, weeded and harvested.
This year the Garden was partially funded with a $1,000 Let’s Move
Pittsburgh Champion Schools Program Grant, which is modeled
after former First Lady Michelle Obama’s national Let’s Move!
Campaign to raise awareness about the benefits of healthy foods,
increased exercise and decreased screen time. Phipps Conservatory
sponsors the local grants.
In addition to purchasing the seeds that will be planted in the
garden, the grant will help with costs associated with the Lincoln
Garden Club and A Taste of Lincoln programs. Garden Club students
will plant and maintain their own container garden with at least one
vegetable. In the A Taste of Lincoln program, parents will create a
cookbook, taste food prepared using garden produce and work with
their children to prepare a garden-centered recipe using between
three and five garden ingredients.
The grant application was prepared by Lincoln Librarian Denice
Pazuchanics and First Grade Teacher Dawn Douds.
The garden was officially planted on May 31, with the students
putting their plants into the ground, while a film crew from local PBS
station WQED was on-hand to film for an upcoming “Edible STEAM”
segment for the locally produced iQ: smartparent television show.
The Lincoln episode has not been assigned a broadcast date
yet, but it is anticipated the show will air in the Pittsburgh area in
October, with a national release sometime in early 2019.
The Lincoln Community Garden is truly a school-wide endeavor,
as Fourth Grade Teacher Mrs. Strotz and her students tended to
some praying mantis nests and released the hatched insects into the
garden on planting day to help defend the vegetables against pesky
insects that would harm the plants.
Fourth Grade Teacher Mrs. Strotz shows a WQED cameraman the praying mantis
nests the students have been tending to in preparation for their release into the
Community Garden.
A WQED cameraman was present on the day the Community Garden was
planted to get footage for an upcoming episode of iQ: smartparent.
Instructional Support Teacher Mrs. DeGregorio helps Lincoln students to plant in
the newly-created raised planting beds.
BETHEL PARK
❘
FALL 2018
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