Art & Garden Party is 'kid-approved'

CHESTERTOWN — The weather was warm, and the sun shined on Calvert Street in front of H.H. Garnet Elementary School in Chestertown, as kids, parents, and community members gathered for a festive night of art, horticulture, food, and fun at its third annual Arts in the Garden Event.

The May 2 early evening festivities provided the opportunity for student artists, green thumbs, and lovers of a cool street fair to gather and celebrate the progress of a green space and curriculum initiative called the Good Seeds Garden undertaken in 2021.

The evening’s festivities included various art-themed activities such as sidewalk chalk art, plant container crafting and decorating, coloring tables, and a garden path exhibit of student art.

Spearheaded by the school’s community coordination efforts with various partners including the Chestertown Garden Club, the school is now beautifully seeded with intentional plantings and an attractive gravel garden path that provided the perfect backdrop for the school-wide student art exhibition.

Attendees were entertained by a music program and sing-alongs performed by groupings of second graders, third through fifth graders, and Garnet’s Tiger Music Club and Chorus. Participants also enjoyed the frozen delights of Lockbriar Farms Ice Cream and zesty offerings from the Blue Monkey Street Taco truck.

Hundreds of pieces of art accumulated over the last year were creatively strung for display, explained art instructor, Aimee Boumiea. A 17 year veteran of teaching at Garnet — Boumiea said the exhibition was not only taking place along the walls, but also at our feet, as she pointed to rows of vividly painted garden rocks.

“Along the walk you will also find a special rock for each year we have been working in the garden,” said Boumiea.

The event was well-attended, building on its participation numbers from the previous two years.

“I am here for my daughter,” said one Chestertown mom who wanted to support her child’s and other classmates’ efforts in both the art exhibit and the Good Seeds Program in which all the students take part.

Since its inception, said Good Seeds Co-Chair, Carolyne Grotsky, the program has sought not just to create a beautiful school facade but to integrate it with accompanying indoor and outdoor outreach programs working hand-in-hand with the school’s curriculum.

“When we started the project, we raised almost $100,000 … and 1,800 plants went into making the garden,” she said of the effort that enabled the Garden Club and its partners to landscape the entire school grounds and provide resources to create an outdoor classroom.

“It’s everything we wanted it to be.”

The Club, she said, will now move into the maintenance phase of the project where an all-volunteer team pitches in once per week to make sure the plantings remain viable and aesthetically pleasing.

Managing the efforts of the Garden Club and the Title I school’s additional community partners, falls to the supervision of Community School Coordinator Florence Terrill.

Terrill was on hand and in demand on Calvert Street as she is normally tasked with putting all the pieces of the event puzzle together from a participant standpoint.

She is reluctant, however, to talk about her contributions without mentioning those of all the other vital behind-the-scenes individuals who are integral to the cause.

“Each year we learn more about what works and what doesn’t,” she said in relation to the logistics of having such an event come off successfully.

Beyond being a fun communal event, this gathering, Terrill said, speaks to a greater purpose: enhanced engagement between parent and child, and enrichment benchmarks achieved through its connection to the Arts, both fulfilling requirements defined via the Community Needs Assessment surveys that Terrill is responsible for creating.

Tying these needs back the community by finding the right partners within it to work with the school is key.

Like the chorus that is singing the background, Terrill said she is always fine-tuning the school’s efforts to match the skill sets of community partners with what assessments tell them they need, and then integrating those resources into the curriculum.

This is an on-going process, she said, but it’s one she feels is working especially when she attends an event like this.

“And we’re always trying to make it better.”