Grants in Action: A Bed for Every Grade
What happens when the whole school gets to grow something together?
During their break, a group of second graders raced outside, not to the playground, but to the garden.
They had a bed to check on. Two students volunteered to water it. Another measured the pea plants with a ruler, just like they’d practiced in math class, because once the peas hit 24 inches, they’d need to build a trellis. Nearby, a girl pointed out the bed she and her family had filled with soil themselves. This was their garden, and they knew every inch.
That garden grew out of a North Kitsap Schools Foundation grant that helped teacher Melissa Baltzell turn an idea into six working garden beds at Richard Gordon Elementary, complete with irrigation and a plan for every grade level.
And every grade has its own patch. Kindergarten planted sunflowers. First grade got a “play bed,” a place to dig, build, and experiment without disturbing anything growing. Second grade planted parts of plants to taste. Third grade teamed up with the library for a salad bed. Fourth grade grew herbs, and fifth grade claimed the strawberries. Six beds, six grade levels, one school growing something together.
The learning is real, and it doesn’t feel like work. Students have been doing math, science, and writing in the garden all spring. One afternoon, kids were given four minutes to measure the height of as many plants as they could in centimeters, then took that data back inside to build line plots on their whiteboards. The garden became the textbook.
It’s not all measuring and data, either. During one break, a cluster of students gathered around the play bed, building tiny houses for imaginary mice, inventing a whole story to go with them. That’s the quiet gift of a space like this: room to learn, and room to just be a kid.
The garden was built to include everyone. The beds have been adapted for different classes, including the school’s self-contained special education classroom, so that every student has a way to take part. And true to the spirit of the project, the whole school helped name the garden beds; every single student had a hand in it.
Melissa is honest that this is just the beginning. It’s a multi-year project, and there’s more to come: drip irrigation on the way, a few beds still to add, routines still being built. But the main goal for year one is already met: the beds are in, things are growing, and kids are out there using them.
None of it happened alone. Alongside the grant, Melissa gathered community donations, family volunteers, and local support, with more lined up for next year. Families filled beds with soil. Neighbors pitched in. A garden, it turns out, is a pretty good way to bring people together.
And that’s the heart of it. A community came together to give its students a place to grow, literally, and to discover that learning can happen anywhere, even with dirt under your fingernails. Second graders sprinting out at break to check on their peas. A family’s bed, filled with their own hands. That is what support looks like up close.
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