June 9, 2016

Our young women spent a Saturday morning, cultivating their garden in the former backyard of the Walgreen manor. With the help of the Dawn Brancheau Foundation (DBF) and several coworkers, our budding horticulturalists weeded, dug, and planted vegetable seeds to kick off a promising gardening season.

The DBF has long supported our kids, from gifts to volunteer opportunities, and their gardening project with our girls, now in its 5^th year, is a favorite annual tradition. Volunteers help our young women learn every facet of starting a garden, from how to prepare the soil, how deep to dig the seeds, and how to care for the plants to help them thrive.

With four separate, fertile plots, each Home was able to claim their own and work together to plant their favorite veggies, including cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, and many more. Once the vegetables ripen, our young women will harvest their bounty for use in the Walsh Campus kitchens.

Many of our girls had a great time working together and enjoying the small wonders nature had to offer. Our young women came across a thriving chive plant, and a few were even boldenough to pick a stem and taste it.

For our young women who preferred crafts to crops, paints and canvases were provided so they could create signs for each Home’s garden plot.

Once the project was complete, the DBF surprised our girls with gifts of beach towels for the summer days ahead, and our Walsh Campus coworkers provided a well-earned pizza party to celebrate a successful morning.

Thank you to the Dawn Brancheau Foundation fostering our girls’ green thumbs, and to all of our coworkers who helped in the garden!