By: Maeve Rice
At a recent department chair meeting, McNicholas High School announced plans to change the community garden.
McNick announced that the community garden will be transforming into more parking space for students at a meeting. More parking will be a beneficial change, due to the increasing number of students McNick accepts each year.
Director of Facilities Mike Orlando said, “The current garden will soon be replaced with temporary parking. We hope to relocate the garden to another location on campus, but that has not been finalized. We hope to complete the project by the end of spring break, but those dates have not been confirmed.”
Mrs. Regina Goines, former science teacher, department chair, and co-moderator of the community garden, expressed dismay for this change. “I’m not shocked, but it’s disappointing,” Goines said after hearing the news of renovation.
Concerning the farm bot garden in the courtyard near the science classrooms, that was started by a joint effort among science, technology, and engineering. McNicholas applied for the Toshiba Grant that is available for 6-12 grade teachers able to apply for an innovative project into their classroom from the Toshiba America Foundation. The grant brought this project to fruition.
The community garden was originally started to help students appreciate growing food and the students hoped to be able to help supply vegetables for the salad bar that used to be available in the cafeteria. The garden was started by the Ecology Cub under the direction of then science teacher and McNick alum, Ms. Lauren Wulker, and other willing teachers in the 2010’s. “They [Eco Club] wanted a place where they could grow vegetables, herbs, flowers, or whatever else,” Science Department chair Ms. Mary Dennemann said. The Adopt-a-Bed program was started in 2015 as an open space for students or teachers to grow their own produce and bring it back to their homes.
While changes are still waiting to happen, go enjoy the community garden to the fullest.
-MR-
The McNicholas Milestone 