Ford School students showing growth

LYNN – The hallway just outside Ford School Principal Claire Crane’s office is crowded with student-won ribbons and awards, and it just got more. Twenty-three gardeners brought home ribbons for their agricultural entries into the Topsfield Fair.”Some of these kids have been doing this for years,” said Crane. “They’re not gardeners anymore. They’re farmers.”The Ford School is covered on one-and-a-half sides with a rambling community garden that includes a myriad of vegetables grown in raised beds, boxes, buckets and containers of all kinds. Since the gardens’ inception, students, under adult supervision, have been invited to explore and participate by sowing their own seeds. The result of those growing projects can be seen in the more than three dozen ribbons framed and hanging in the hall of fame.Marjorie Rodriguez brought home a first place ribbon for the beets she grew in the community garden. She said she loves working in the garden.”I like after we get to pick all we grew and we get to make a salad,” she said.Natalie Noesi won a third place ribbon for her red tomatoes, which she said she likes to eat in a salads.”I like growing things and being with friends and family in the garden,” she said.But she doesn’t necessarily like everything they grow.”We grew red peppers and they were mad spicy,” she said. “They were way too spicy.”For the most part, the kids like what they grow.Asked what their favorite vegetable is and students shout out an array of answers: corn, carrots, cherry tomatoes and even cauliflower, to name a few.”My favorite is a very different answer,” said Noesi. “I like purple peppers.”Noesi didn’t grow the purple peppers for the fair but she did bring home a third place ribbon for red tomatoes.The complete list of winners includes: first place ribbons for Marjorie Rodriguez, Kaylee Etienne and Chelsea Zheng. Second place ribbons for Samantha Boyd, Natalie Whitcomb, Bryce Solo, Justin Solo, Elizabeth Perez and Carla de Los Santos.Third place ribbons for Krystian Callor, Cody McLaughlin, Natalie Noesi, Gabriela, Malik Ali and Emely Gomez, Olivia Whitcomb, James Boyd and Marcus Perry.And Fendi Moron, Jeremiah Tolentino, Olga de Los Santos, Johan Rodriguez and Endui Noesi each brought home a coral-colored honorable mention ribbon.The ribbons, framed by lunch cook Marion Mininger, who works in the garden with the students, can be seen in hallway hanging with several years worth of similar ribbons.