(2nd in a Series entitled “Wellness: Moving Beyond the Family” – see Aug. 7, 2023)
Hear Wayman Ka, parent of a 9th grader and a 6th grader, both of whom went to Stedwick Elementary School, and his enduring relationship to his kids’ alma mater, sustained by a passion for gardening and a desire to enhance the learning environment of young children outside the classroom in a practical, on-site community-organizing effort.
Just one resident’s simple way of giving back to his community.
Watch the two-minute video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bunHLCemyIg
Here’s the transcript:
GGC: Hello everyone, I’m here with Wayman Ka. Wayman, what do you do at Stedwick Elementary?
WK: Hey, Norm, thanks for having me. So I am a point of contact for the vegetable gardens area here. What you see here is the courtyard of Stedwick Elementary School.
I kind of fell into this role when the old caretaker of this place left and the principal at the time said, “Hey, Wayman, we have a need: can you kind of maintain and manage this courtyard garden – to ‘have it,’ as you will.
And I took it as an opportunity to – well, what you see here is a vegetable garden and my vision for this is to have the students and kids get involved – come out here, get some fresh air, learn about, nature, gardening, nutrition, that sort of thing, things that I love.
GGC: So what’s your hope this year?
WK: So far, this started a year or a year and a half ago, and I’ve been experimenting.
What you see here is this little section which was all weeds and I had a couple of volunteers come and pull all the weeds out so that we can experiment and see what grows well, what doesn’t, what kind of sunlight we get, and it’s doing pretty well.
So, moving from this phase, I’d like to add some raised-bed gardens. But I’ll need some help. So I’m going to officially start a garden club here: get some volunteers, get some admin. involvement. We already have good involvement and buy-in from the principal and the vice principal. So all that’s left to do is start this garden club, get some volunteers, and get the kids involved!
If you would like to help, contact Wayman via the Stedwick Elementary School PTA Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/stedwickpta