| Girard Childrens' Community Garden (all ages)
In the Spring of 2008 City Blossoms was choosen to transform an asphalt lot into a community garden for children. Girard Childrens Community Garden, located in Columbia Heights is designed to be a demonstration garden where children from neighborhood organizations can attend weekly workshops to grow vegetables as well as help care for the flower and herb beds. The garden currently includes twelve raised beds that are currently being kept by gardeners from Community of Hope, the Columbia Heights Youth Club, D.C. Bilingual Public Charter School, and Asian American LEAD, as well as two adult volunteers who in exchange for planting space help maintain the garden. The garden is also home to our new Girard Workshop Series.
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| Growing Girls & Gardens, Garrison Middle School (ages 11-14)
In 2007 City Blossoms began working with Growing Girls & Gardens, a partnership program between Garrison Middle School and Roland Park Country School, in Baltimore City. Currently City Blossoms works with participating girls through the school year Garden Club and GGG Summer Camp to care for this garden. The garden is used as an educational tool as well as to grow vegetables for students and their families. Also the gardeners have used the herbs grown to start a product line they named Nature's Beauty.
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D.C. Bilingual Public Charter School (ages 4-10)
This program provides weekly workshops for grades K – 3, that ties the garden to the school’s curricular standards and objectives. During these workshops participants enrich their reading, math and science skills as they maintain the gardens and work on grade-appropriate projects. Students work in the CentroNia garden in addition to supplementary classroom workshops from October to June. Class projects include: Life cycles of plants and insects, composting, vegetable gardening and mapping. Also, a recent highlight of the program was the fostering of a relationship between the student gardeners and a local working farm. Several of the teachers in CentroNia have used the garden independently as a tool for their classes and projects, especially the visual art and photography program. The garden also provides a peaceful space for staff and children to explore and even sit and eat lunch!
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| Summer and After School (ages 4-18)
The youth involved with the garden range from Kindergarteners to teenagers, and each group gains particular knowledge of the plants and their uses through fun, exploratory activities. The purposes of the workshops are to help maintain the gardens while aligning with themes that connect gardening to healthy daily living. Some of the recent themes have been: The Garden Spot: where kids are the gardeners, chefs and diners of their very own restaurant; Gorgeous Gardens: Making functional garden art; and Growing A Business: youth entrepreneurs create organic, herb-based products to sell locally.
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Pre-K Incentive Program (ages 3-5)
@ Harvard St., NW & University Blvd., MD
The workshops at these two gardens are for 3, 4 and 5 year olds, and use reading, movement, and art to create an early connection to nature and the cycle of growth, as well as classifying and identifying various plants. For such young gardens, there is a surprising amount of variety – butterfly-attracting beds, various fruit and vegetable plots, a 5-senses area, a composting system, and an outdoor classroom. Classes run year-round.
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Barbara Chambers Children's Center (Past Project)
During the summers of 2000-2004 there was an incredibly bountiful garden in the play yard of BCCC. At this location there was a rotating group of children who learned how the garden related to the local community by interviewing neighbors, family members and local businesses. This project also included a year-long collaboration with a kindergarten class from the Capital City Charter School.
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| Special Events:
City Blossoms enthusiastically works with teachers and after-school/summer camp counselors to organize school-wide celebrations and events that promote environmental and community stewardship. Some of our past events have been the Winter Extravaganza: a fair where groups designed and led hands-on activities such as a free-market, bulb sale and photography exhibit; Farmer’s Market Sale: youth entrepreneurs participated in a farmers market, selling their hand-made wares (lotion bars, soaps, seed balls, etc.) to the local community. To see pictures of the Farmer’s Market, check out cityblossoms.blogspot.com.
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