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FW: Brooklyn Botanic Garden searches for Children's Gardenalumni
I thought this was quite interesting. I imagine many of you have seen it,
but just in case, it was worth posting.
-Lon Rombough
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From: "Pelekidis, Angie" <angiepelekidis@bbg.org>
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 10:57:54 -0500
Subject: Brooklyn Botanic Garden searches for Children's Garden alumni
For Immediate Release
CONTACT: Noemi Figueroa/718-623-7241
noemifigueroa@bbg.org
Images available
Brooklyn Botanic Garden Is Searching High and Low
for its Childrens Garden Alumni!
Alumni that are found will be invited to a reunion celebrating the 90th
Anniversary
of the Childrens Garden on Sunday, September 12, 2004
Brooklyn, NY -- Calling all Brooklyn Botanic Garden Childrens Garden
Alumni! Since its creation in 1914, BBGs Childrens Garden, the oldest in
the country, has taught thousands of children the joys of gardening. And now
the Garden is asking people of all ages who have participated in this
program to help celebrate the Childrens Garden 90th Anniversary at an
alumni reunion and celebration on Sunday, September 12, 2004. To add your
name to the alumni reunion mailing list or to add the names and addresses
of other alumni who should receive an invitation visit the Gardens
website at www.bbg.org/alumni/ or call 718-623-7370.
History of the Childrens Garden
The years I spent as a youngster at BBGs Childrens Garden were among the
happiest and most interesting of my life. It was a difficult period for our
country as we were in the midst of World War II. I never realized till many
years later how much botany and horticulture I had learned and I hadnt yet
graduated from high school.
George Morrison, Childrens Garden alumnus and Master Gardener with
Westchester Countys Cornell Cooperative Extension.
In 1913, a young schoolteacher named Ellen Eddy Shaw arrived at Brooklyn
Botanic Garden with the goal of providing all children with a garden. She
began by asking teachers in poor sections of the city to distribute seeds to
their students. Ellen Eddy Shaw went on to establish the Childrens Garden
at BBG, now known as Miss Shaws Garden. Today in this garden, young hands
dig in the dirt, plant seeds, and discover the joys of gardening just as
they did 90 years ago.
When Miss Shaw created the Childrens Garden program in 1914, the nation was
in the throes of a profound transition from a rural to an industrial
society. She believed the Childrens Garden could be a living opportunity
for a child to learn lessons of nurture and observe how nature looks out for
herself. Her once-revolutionary idea that a scientific institution could
provide hands-on education for children has become an integral and much
imitated part of BBGs mission. More than nine decades after the creation
of the Childrens Garden, its goals and ideals continue to be embraced by
educators and environmentalists alike.
Generosity was a cornerstone of the educational philosophy of Miss Shaws
Childrens Garden. Under her guidance, the Boys and Girls Clubs, the
Saturday morning extracurricular component of the program, became a
generous, if modest, foundation, dispensing gifts to a multitude of causes.
Modest gifts were dispensed yearly to an assortment of institutions chosen
by the boys and girls participating in the clubs. The groups most often
selected offered care to animals and indigent children.
One of Miss Shaws major accomplishments was what she later came to call
Our Pattern. Each child, however young, was to plan, plant, tend, and
harvest his or her own vegetables in a garden plot with a partner. In
addition, each child was expected to help with common areas the flower
borders and beds of melon, corn, and other large-area crops. In the early
decades, teenagers were also expected to work elsewhere in the Garden. Those
who were especially eager and qualified were encouraged to do serious
research as well.
In 1930, Miss Shaw had the foresight to hire Frances M. Miner, a selfless,
dedicated young woman who was equally eager to preserve and enrich the
programs offered by BBGs Childrens Garden. The two women worked together
until 1945, when Ms. Shaw passed the mantle to her younger colleague, who
nurtured the program until her own retirement in 1973.
The Childrens Garden Today
The philosophy of Miss Shaw and Miss Miner endures in the Childrens Garden
today. Young participants continue to garden in pairs on plots of land that
they nurture themselves. Now as then, they learn about botany, plant
families, seed germination, how to identify weeds and insects, press
flowers, and create herbarium specimens. Older children still play a vital
role in teaching younger ones. And the seasonal rituals so important to the
traditions of the Childrens Garden Planting Day that starts the season
and Harvest Day that completes it take place just as they did at the
inception of the program.
Brooklyn Botanic Gardens Childrens Garden, the first ever established in a
botanical garden and the oldest continuously operating in the world, is sill
one of the largest such programs in the nation. The program was expanded
some years ago to include even younger children those from three to six
years called KinderGardeners. For these students, instructors combine
planting, tending, and harvesting with craft-making and creative play.
School groups continue to come to the garden, and today more than 800
youngsters of all ages garden in the Childrens Garden each year.
For more information on the Childrens Garden and its programs, to sign up
for latest Childrens Garden News newsletter, or to register for a class,
call 718-623-7220 or visit
http://www.bbg.org/edu/children/childrensgarden.html. Scholarships are
available and children will not be turned away for financial reasons.
GENERAL INFORMATION: Call 718-623-7200 or visit www.bbg.org
<http://www.bbg.org/>
Admission: Free weekday admission through February! Weekend admission $5 for
adults (16 and older), $3 for seniors (65 and older). Free for children
under 16, all school groups, Members, and Frequent Visitor Pass holders.
Seniors free all-day Friday. Free Saturdays until noon and Tuesdays all-day=
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