59.0°,
Mostly Cloudy Enjoying the fruits of their labor
H-W’s garden serves as a teaching tool
Three years ago, a group of students from the Hewlett-Woodmere School District’s Youth Leadership Forum, which focuses on sustainability, attended a conference in Chicago and saw firsthand the huge impact growing produce had on a community. They returned asking the question, “Why don’t we have a garden?”
Through two $4,000 Hewlett-Woodmere Public Schools Endowment Fund grants, the Youth Leadership Forum, under the direction of Hewlett High School social studies teacher David Rifkind, turned the idea into something tangible. Over the summer, the community garden, behind 1 in 9 Hewlett House on East Rockaway Road, produced its first crop of herbs, trees and vegetables, including potatoes, tomatoes and peppers.
“We had to figure out what to plant, what to plant together and how to rotate the beds,” Rifkind said. “We want to constantly use the space as productively as possible.”
The Youth Leadership Forum sought help with the garden from the Cornell Cooperative Extension, which offers educational programs and services to improve a community’s quality of life. Bob Sympson, a Lynbrook resident and the director of the Cooperative Extension in Nassau County, has assisted the Hewlett-Woodmere district for nearly three years. “The educational aspect is phenomenal,” he said. “The kids learn to appreciate what it takes to raise food, and they’re flabbergasted to see how carrots are pulled out of the ground.”
In any given week, the garden has between 10 and 40 volunteers who weed, plant and maintain the plantings. Sophomores Chenab Khakh and Emanuel Cohen have been working in the garden all summer. “It’s something we wouldn’t have learned how to do otherwise, and it’s the highlight of my summer,” Khakh said. “It’s really coming along, and I hope it goes much further. Gardening is fun; it’s like nothing else.”
“I’ve seen so many people who have their own gardens bring their knowledge to us so we can make more progress,” Cohen said. “And I’ve also seen more people starting their own gardens.”
