Growing pains at Lynn community garden

LYNN – School Superintendent Dr. Catherine C. Latham told a dozen protesters Monday that the Ford School community garden?s transition to a school garden does not necessarily mean Highland residents are excluded from the Rock Avenue green space.School garden guidelines approved by the School Committee in February underscore the value of volunteers working in the gardens to “strengthen social networks in the school community.”City workers used heavy equipment Monday afternoon to clear away part of the seven-year-old community garden tended, in part, by Highlands Coalition members. By fall, the garden is slated to be one of two school “salad days” gardens.The other garden is planned for Callahan School, said School Committee secretary Thomas Iarrobino, with a third garden proposed for Pickering Middle School.The community garden was not planted this year, and is largely overgrown with weeds.Coalition Director David Gass and Chairman Leslie Greenberg said the Coalition invested up to $20,000 in the Ford community garden and, as of Monday, still needed to remove items from the garden.Iarrobino Monday pointed out that Gass has attended committee meetings where school officials have discussed garden site cleanup and other concerns. He said he has spoken regularly with Gass about Coalition interest in removing items from the garden. “Whatever you want, take it,” Latham said Monday.A garden committee appointed by Ford Principal Joanne LaRivee will oversee the new Ford garden.School garden guidelines call for “parents and/or community members” to be on the committee.The guidelines require volunteers to undergo background checks before working in a school garden.?My responsibility is to protect the children,” Latham said.Iarrobino said students will plant and harvest vegetables in the salad days garden, with help from urban gardening organization The Food Project, using raised beds built on part of the existing garden site.Gass said successful gardens need active community members like the ones mobilized by the Coalition to tend the Ford garden.?A garden grows 24 hours a day. You can?t get community volunteers without an organization like ours,” he said.Falan Delossantos, 13, and her three sisters have tilled the Ford garden and said garden produce won prizes at the Topsfield Fair.?Lots of children come here to have fun,” she said.School garden guidelines stress the value of linking school gardens and curriculums “to influence student food choices and lifelong eating habits.”?Students reap the benefits of a patch of ground they can call their own,” LaRivee said.