SOAR kids harvest local garden

Volunteers from AmeriCorps, under the supervision of Barbara Turner, teamed up with local children this summer to create a "community garden" in Sisters.

This past spring, AmeriCorps members, Darcy Ling-Scott, Erika Horowitz and Cheryl Zellers, introduced the children from Sisters Organization for Activities and Recreation to the joys of gardening.

The children, participants in SOAR's after-school clubhouse program and the summer clubhouse program, planted seeds and tended to the seedlings during their initial stages of germination and incubation at the greenhouse located at the Sisters Elementary School. Varieties of summer and winter squash, carrots, cucumbers, and onions were on the menu of the SOAR "community garden."

With this year's delay in summer weather, the children from SOAR, armed with hoes and with spades in hand, planted their seedlings late in June.

Strong and healthy harvest-producing plants are now visible in front of the Sisters Middle School. The seedlings were integrated into the garden area which had been prepared by the children from the Sisters Middle School who also contributed peas and sunflowers.

The clubhouse members of SOAR and the AmeriCorps volunteers have been responsible for the continuing efforts this summer.

The children have learned a variety of gardening do's and don't's. A second planting - of strawberry plants - has the children dreaming of shortcake.

The children were delighted with their first harvest of vegetables. Some children were old hands at shucking the peas while others found out that they really did like eating spinach when it is fresh from the garden.

AmeriCorps, which is considered to be the "domestic Peace Corps," has special interests in literacy and in team building.

For more information on the AmeriCorps program call 383-7240.