Junior Horticulture Day finds success, as fourth-graders use
Bonfante Gardens as a ‘living lab’
Gilroy – When Barb Granter landed a job at Bonfante Gardens as vice president, she promised the park’s board president that she would become involved in the community.
So she joined Leadership Gilroy, a local group that trains individuals to be community leaders. And since the point of Leadership Gilroy is to design a community-based project, Granter decided to make it a priority to tap into the educational benefits of the park.
The end product was Junior Horticulture Day at Bonfante Gardens.
“The schools weren’t using it as a living lab,” Granter said. “It was really being underutilized as an educational (tool).”
Because fourth graders are immersed in plant-based curriculum, the group focused on that grade. Leadership Gilroy raised enough cash to send about 850 fourth-graders from Gilroy public schools to the all day event last year. The group also set up the Educational Foundation Committee and will continue to raise money for the event.
On Tuesday, about 1,300 students from Gilroy schools, including Pacific West Christian Academy and Ladd Lane Elementary School in Hollister attended the second annual Junior Horticulture Day.
Pacific West Christian funded its own students’ trip. The Gilroy High School Latino Club also attended the event to help the elementary students.
The event costs about $15 to $20 per student and Bonfante Gardens donated the lunches.
Students spent the sunny morning at one of six stations which included plant labeling, a garden scavenger hunt, rock experiment, water cycle and the educational Music Market Show on the Red & White Stage.
Joel Goldsmith, of Goldsmith Seeds, spent three days visiting local classrooms in April to help students plant flowers. On Tuesday, the students planted the flowers donated by Goldsmith.
Sara Citti, 10, enjoyed every minute of her visit to the Gilroy park.
“I loved it,” said the Pacific West Christian Academy student.
So what’d she learn?
“We learned about worms,” she said. “We learned that if you cut a worm in half, half of it lives because it has these little band things.”
