More Than A Garden

I think I’m in shock. I just got finished with a project I’ve been working on for almost a year, and its finally happening.

Awhile back I wrote Maybe It All Starts With a Garden  about how this project was turning out to be more of a gift for me than I had ever expected.

Honestly, it has just continued.

While everything was happening, I tried not to exclaim out loud how well it was all going, so as not to jinx things, but it really was. This whole project just seemed…meant to be. Like there was a force that was guiding the whole situation.

To catch you up… our school won a $10,000 grant from Organic company Seeds of Change , and then just this summer Lowe’s  chose us for their Lowe’s Heroes Program. I mean come on…doesn’t that sound just a little blessed?!

When I was first starting out on this “School Garden Quest”, I reached out to contact the President of the Garden Club of Santa Clarita, Carol Mireles. She and club founder Diane Benjamin came to our school to help survey our campus and find an appropriate site.

Carol and Diane are also members of the Community Gardens of Santa Clarita, an incredible community garden.

One day they told me about this lady who had a plot there. They had told her about my plans for a school garden and she said “Tell her to contact me!” So I set up a meeting and brought her my proposal for the garden, complete with budget and timeline. I was serious. She was too.

Turns out ‘this woman’ was Lisa Ely. Author of 3 children’s gardening books featuring Karden her puppet pal, HGTV producer, creator of a children’s school gardening curriculum, and all around Garden Ninja!

Plop. Right into my hands. Oh it was so on now!

She mentored me through all the steps of planning and meetings. And when she came across a contest that was giving away $10,000 and $20,000 grants, she alerted me. Turns out there were only 2 weeks left in the contest, but with the help of our PTA President, and Lisa, we got the application in. Now we just had to beat 800 other applications in an online voting contest for a grant.

It was my friend Jessica, the creator of Vegan Street Fair,  that gave me the game plan. It was 18 days of gardening tips from Lisa, possibly annoying Facebook messages from me, and lots of reposts from our PTA.

And we also got another big boost when Matt and Amy Roloff from TLC’s Little People Big World took to their social media accounts help us rack up some votes.

And in the end. We got one!

Wait. It gets better.

For our Open House, I had a  table promoting our garden and the Grant that we had just won.

In preparation, I had gone to Lowe’s in May, looking for some rocks my kids could paint as decorations for the table, and I flagged down Sandra, a manager that just happened to be walking by, to ask her for some help.

While we were going to look at the rocks, I told her about the garden program we were starting at our school, and asked if they had any other funding besides their grant. (I was already turned down for that!) She said that each store did get to choose 1 project every year to do, and that I could go ahead and send something. So I went home and sent her the ‘short proposal’. (I had a short one and a long one prepared because I’m crazy like that).

Summertime was pretty chill, until I got an email message from Sandra, saying she would like to meet with us, as they were considering our project! I called up Lisa and she was there. That day, we sealed the deal!

There was only one issue. They had to do the job by August. It was July 8. Time to scramble!

I went back to my ‘Interest Sign Up’ sheet from Open House, and looked for the star that Lisa had marked on there. While I was off looking at my children’s classrooms and projects that night, Lisa stayed to man the table, and managed to find that one of the people who signed the sheet was also a contractor. So I emailed him and said ‘Hey…wanna help?’

Its been a wild flurry of emails and documents, meetings and press releases, but we did it. And it has left me feeling inspired.

From the Principal, who gave the ‘ok’ to move forward, to the PTA who not only supported the idea for a School Garden, but promoted the Garden plans along the way; to Lisa who held my hand through every step, and showed up every time I needed her; to the Lowe’s team that went above and beyond to make sure that it was a successful project, to a school parent, who stepped up and took the time out of his life to lead the Lowe’s crew for 2 whole days; to the School District, which has shared our enthusiasm from day 1… I have felt the presence of partners.

My initial expectation is always that I am going to be left holding the bag. Probably some issues from childhood, but that is where my mind goes.

But I couldn’t do that this time. I felt held up by everyone around me. Everyone was working towards the same goal. It wasn’t about who was getting credit for something, or who wasn’t pulling their weight and was pushing the work off onto someone else. We all worked hard. Not because there was someone telling us to do it, but because we all wanted to be able to give this gift. And we had a fun time doing it!

I am overwhelmed right now at the generosity of the people in my community. I am proud of the selflessness displayed by the adults, and happy for the example we are offering our children. But most importantly I’m hopeful of all the other great stuff I know we can accomplish now!