ATLANTIC CITY – Here in a 9,100-square-foot patch of greenery behind Our Lady Star of the Sea Regional School, Theresa Gibson smiled as she watched her third-grader explore, exercise and enjoy the morning with her friends and school community.
As Carmen Marie Braithwaite kept busy digging soil and pulling wheelbarrows under the cloudy sky and amidst a cool breeze, Gibson knew her daughter was not only getting a kick out of helping out, but learning to give back.
“Teach them young,” she said, laughing.
Gibson’s family and others took part in a schoolwide program April 20 to “wake up” its new peace garden for the spring season, beginning an initiative that will provide students lessons on ecology, horticulture, nutrition, sustainability and being stewards of God’s creation.
Principal Ramona Bregatta took off her gardening gloves as she explained the importance of the program. “We’re trying to promote awareness for students, on the different ecosystems of a garden, taking care of our planet, and have them ask themselves questions such as, ‘What does it mean in an urban area to have a green space? What does it mean to be able to see God’s bounty and watch things grow?’”
Noting that each grade level has its own 4-feet-by-8-feet raised bed, Bregatta said the day was dedicated to “filling up these beds with soil and getting them ready for the plants that our students have already been growing in their own classrooms, such as flowers, corn, tomatoes, herbs and squash.”
“This is only Phase 1,” Bregatta said. “In Phase 2, we’ll have pear trees, and blueberry and hazelnut bushes. We’re creating an edible forest.”
The project was made possible through the school’s partnership with Greg Freelon, founder and executive director of Coastal Cousins Heritage Garden, an organization that builds relationships in agricultural and cultural heritage. Coastal Cousins will guide students in gardening workshops and other academic activities.
“There’s science, there’s botany, there’s mathematics here,” Freelon said, adding that “nutrition is also an important part of this, and hopefully they’ll be able to create their own healthy lunches through what they grow.”
Freelon, former advancement director at Our Lady Star of the Sea Regional School, was instrumental in getting a peace garden put into the school in 2019. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, and the space fell into disrepair. Earlier this year, Freelon and Bregatta created a plan to bring it back into bloom.
Community leaders and organizations have contributed to the three-year project, including students from the Atlantic County Institute of Technology, which designed a physical model for the garden; the Atlantic County Utilities Authority, which donated the soil; and the nonprofit C.R.O.P.S. (Communities Revolutionizing Open Public Spaces), which donated an irrigation system for the school to connect to.
“It’s amazing when you have such a great community,” Bregatta said, adding, “For our hardworking families to come on a weekend to help the garden get ready, it means a lot.”
Bregatta hopes Our Lady Star of the Sea’s program will further help educate its students on how agriculture can contribute to a healthy population.
Agriculture was already contributing to exercise, as four youngsters pushed over a wheelbarrow, dumping soil into a bed. As the soft dirt spilled out, the students feverishly worked on their hands and knees to level the ground.
“We’re opening up students’ imaginations to what urban gardening can be,” Freelon said.
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