This year, the Garden Club began a new grant program available to all teachers and staff within the Camas and Washougal school districts.

The grant program’s purpose is to promote knowledge and love of gardening as well as to encourage responsible stewardship of the environment among students.

• Gayle Cooper,  teacher at Skyridge Middle School.  The “Native Plant Garden” will be amended with additional native plants (and compost and gravel) as part of the living garden used for the Lewis & Clark curriculum.
• Sarah Logan, Librarian at Dorothy Fox Elementary.  The “Library Gardening Collection” will grow with the purchase of new book series about gardening and food production.
• Julie Della Valle, teacher at Grass Valley Elementary.  The “Outdoor Classroom Lawn” area will be planted with a special “no mow”,  extra-tough lawn seed able to handle foot traffic as children observe and learn about insects and plants in the surrounding garden area.
• Lisa Young, Early childhood development coordinator for Washougal District.  “Our Preschool Gardens” project will provide raised garden beds with  individual plots for each 3-5 year old.  Garden beds will be built at each of the district’s pre-schools to help teach children the “Plant, Grow, Eat” cycle. Lumber, soil and kid-sized hand tools will be purchased with the grant money.  Labor and additional supplies will be provided by older students, teachers, school staff and other groups.

[Image: BR]