Pomeroy Elementary School's Garden to Table program creates new experiences for young students and teaches them to try new foods.
At the Nov. 17 gathering for Transitional Kindergarten (TK) Teacher Julie Hues’s class at Pomeroy Elementary School, TK foodies shared tasting notes after sampling pasta seasoned with five varieties of salt – kosher, Himalayan pink, wild mushroom, oak smoked and wild garlic. Audrey Hinton, Pomeroy’s Garden and Cooking Teacher and Garden Coordinator, prepared the pasta. She used the induction burner, pot and utensils from the Charlie Cart, a mobile kitchen.Read more at svvoice.com.
It was being called "garden of dreams." But, it wasn’t just about a community garden for the children of Pomeroy Elementary School; it was about a complete overhaul given to the school April 27-29 as nearly 350 volunteers came out to help.
The volunteers, most of whom were part of the Beautiful Day organization, completed larger projects like putting in planter boxes, removing weeds and replacing an old tool shed in the school’s garden, as well as smaller projects like repainting the lines on the sidewalks.
"Basically we’re just giving the school a once over," said Lori Dabak, the project manager for Pomeroy’s Beautiful Day.
"As part of Beautiful Day, we look around in the community and see what could benefit from the most help. So when we looked at schools and thought about which school could use a little freshening up, Pomeroy came up...So we met with Tricia [Ringel], the principal, and she was like, "sure, yeah," and she’s been great to work with."
The all-volunteer Beautiful Day organization, many of which are members of Westgate Church, tirelessly worked to prepare of Pomeroy’s "Beautiful Day." Prior to the big day, an acquisitions team reached out into the community and asked local businesses for donations. From the little things, like coffee, to the larger items, like lumber and a new leather sofa for the teacher’s lounge, the community generously responded.
"It’s a community effort," said Dabak. "Beautiful Day just started realizing that we wanted to partner with cities in Silicon Valley and thought "what can we do to bridge the gap where things are just not being done - thing we can get involved in and just do some things that budget cuts aren’t able to do."
"This has been a brainchild since last November when we started working on it and planning and then we met with Tricia in January," she continued. "We finally got in touch with her and once we figured out that we were going to do a school we just got to thinking back in November and just every month it just takes on a little bit more until we figured it out."
What started with the simple idea of painting a United States map on the blacktop, turned into something worthy of an extreme makeover television show. After just a few short hours of work, Ringel was brought to tears. "This is awesome," she said. "Thank you." "And this is just the beginning," chimed in Monica Watkins, one of the project directors. "We’re here all day and here tomorrow. We had a vision and here we are."
For more information on Beautiful Day, visit www.beautifulday.org.
Volunteers to Beautify Silicon Valley School April 28-29, 2012
The children and staff of Pomeroy Elementary in Santa Clara will leave their well-worn campus on an upcoming Friday to return on Monday to a brighter, fresher school, thanks to a full weekend of volunteer labor.
More than 300 volunteers are expected to descend on the campus in the Santa Clara Unified School District on Saturday, April 28, and Sunday, April 29, to clean, paint, build, and garden, in a project called “Beautify Pomeroy”. The group Beautiful Day is signing up people from all over Silicon Valley who want to invest in the children’s futures through the service project.
“Beautify Pomeroy” is part of an even larger community-wide annual Beautiful Day event that is expected to utilize approximately 6,000 volunteers between April 21 and 29. Projects include cleaning area freeways, refurbishing homes, cleaning parks and neighborhoods, helping the homeless, and more.
By the end of that weekend at Pomeroy, the teachers’ lounge will have a new look, as well as a refrigerator that actually works, replacing the old broken one. The school’s community garden will have new planter boxes and a solar-powered water feature. The playground will have some new equipment, as well as a recycling center to collect empty juice boxes and water bottles. And around campus some walls will sport fresh paint and murals.
She said one of the goals of the weekend event is to provide the school with the extras that tight budgets don’t usually allow, by bringing together the resources and volunteers to make it all happen.
Dabak is using her skills as an interior designer to refresh the teachers’ lounge. A team will give the lounge a new seating area, a new working fridge, and new audio/visual equipment. She said the “Beautify Pomeroy” team dreamed about “what would make the teachers feel special,” so that it would translate back to the students.
The special treatment of teachers and staff starts Friday, when volunteers are serving up an appreciation brunch and lunch featuring home cooked dishes, she said. The next day volunteers go to work on the numerous improvement projects around campus.
One of the biggest projects is fixing up the community garden, Dabak said. Each classroom has a planter box to grow vegetables and herbs, but those boxes are in serious disrepair. She said their condition makes it difficult for teachers to use the boxes as part of lessons.
Besides rebuilding the boxes, teams of volunteers will also rebuild a compost bin, replace a tool shed, trim overgrown trees and shrubs, and install a small solar-powered water fountain. A pathway through the middle of the garden will get asphalt for a permanent surface.
Another outdoor project is installing header board around grass areas “to give it a clean look,” Dabak said.
Volunteers painted this map of the world on the blacktop at George Mayne Elementary in Alviso, CA., during a 2011 service event.
A large colorful map of the U.S. is planned for the playground’s blacktop. Beautiful Day oversaw a similar map painting project during last year’s event at George Mayne Elementary in Aliviso. Dabak said it takes at least 20 people to paint the map.
The group will also replace some playground equipment, clean out planter boxes around trees, and build the recycling center. Walls inside the cafeteria will get a fresh coat of paint, and other painting projects are on tap that weekend.
Dabak said the event is perfect for families and groups who wish to volunteer together; children as young as 5 are welcome, with adult supervision.
To sign up, or for more information about “Beautify Pomeroy”, see the Beautiful Day website.
