This is the second post from a youth group that attended this March's Young Adults Environmental Leadership Program (YAELP). As part of the YAELP program, participating groups from Western New York high schools were asked to post articles on their projects to the Grow website.
In 2011 a few Pembroke High School students decided to make a change for the better at their school by planting a garden. What started as an idea soon became a reality.
By attending the Young Adult Environmental Leadership Program (YAELP) we were paired with a specialist who helped us on our way. After writing a proposal for our project, and presenting our proposal to a board, we received approval. A few months later we were given seed money by the YAELP Summit we attended earlier that year. By summer Pembroke owned four raised beds overflowing with plants such as onions, peppers and tomatoes. We were even able to serve some of the vegetables in our school lunch program.
A problem we found with our garden was how to water it. Last year we spent most of our time lugging large buckets of water around to provide the plants with a suitable amount of irrigation. This year we are hoping to fix that by building a shed with gutters that collect rainwater and then distributes it among barrels. We can then draw water from the barrels to water the plants. This will be better than going in and out of the school with water buckets. In addition, we will reuse rainwater instead of using fresh water. This shed will also be useful in storing garden supplies and perhaps starting new plants in. We hope to accomplish this project by the end of this year and maybe even have some early vegetables to serve again in the cafeteria!We look forward to growing our garden though YAELP again next year!
