On the QT | The Official Newsletter of GWA September - October 2017 | Page 17

GWAF scholarship winners Aaryn Wilson and
Isaac Luhrs enjoy the Buffalo Botanical Gardens
reception at #GWA2017.
Following last year’s successful #GWA2016 NextGen
Scholarship, awarded to Chris Freimuth, the Foundation
funded three scholarships for 2017, funded in part by an
anonymous donation from a longtime GWA member.
Per this year’s requirements, the ideal scholarship
recipient would be a student or a young professional under
the age of 40 working as a garden writer, blogger, speaker
or photographer. Each applicant was asked to submit a resume along with an essay discuss-
ing the future of garden communications.

Jocelyn Camacho, Bakersfield, California, undergraduate horticulture student at California
State University-Bakersfield. She tutors kindergarteners through sixth grade students through
California Mini-Corps and serves as an ambassador in California Migrant Assistance Program.
Scholarships Send Three Students
to #GWA2017 in Buffalo
Isaac Luhrs, Athens, Tennessee, undergraduate plant sciences, public horticulture at
the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. He is a horticulturist at Tickleberry Manor Goats in
Maryville, Tennessee and works as an intern at the University of Tennessee Garden in Jackson,
Tennessee. Isaac also received a 2017 academic scholarship from GWAF.
Aaryn Wilson, St. Paul, Minnesota, 2016 graduate of the University of Minnesota, with
a B.S. degree in plant science. He has worked with a local elementary school, co-leading
curriculum development for an afterschool farm and as a garden educator. He also works in a
university’s soil science lab with professors on their research projects.
GWA’s Alexa Haller and Caitlin Norton traveled to Rochester Hills, Michigan, to work on a garden as one
of the four Gro1000 projects for 2017. This 5,000-square-foot garden is in Innovation Hills Park, and
once completed will serve as a student-designed sensory garden inclusive and sensitive to those wi th
disabilities, including autism. On May 19 fourth grade students from West Hamlin Elementary partici-
pated in gardening, tea tastings and seed ball making. place for people to enjoy!
Jessica Walliser (left) spends time with GWAF
scholarship winner Jocelyn Camacho during the
Awards Banquet at #GWA2017.
Lastly, GWA traveled to New Haven, Connecticut,
June 10 to work on a garden that brings two
cities together. It provides a central location
for a community garden, playgrounds, and
even a place for the adjacent school to conduct
science experiments. This is a kid-owned garden
that brings the whole community together.
On planting day, everyone worked to build a
wildflower garden, as well as a fruit and vegetable
garden. This planting concluded the last of the
four Gro1000 gardens for 2017.
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