New Garden Club for kids to meet today at library

Crystal Bowne stands next to a poster advertising the new Garden Club, which meets at 3:30 p.m. each Thursday at the Faulkner County Library, 1900 Tyler St. in Conway. Bowne, an Arkansas GardenCorps service member, started the club for kids ages 7 and up. She said they will have a healthy snack, then a short lesson and get into the garden at the library. It is the Faulkner County Urban Farm Project, and produce grown is shared with others, including a food pantry.
Crystal Bowne stands next to a poster advertising the new Garden Club, which meets at 3:30 p.m. each Thursday at the Faulkner County Library, 1900 Tyler St. in Conway. Bowne, an Arkansas GardenCorps service member, started the club for kids ages 7 and up. She said they will have a healthy snack, then a short lesson and get into the garden at the library. It is the Faulkner County Urban Farm Project, and produce grown is shared with others, including a food pantry.

CONWAY — Crystal Bowne of Conway said the new Garden Club for kids, scheduled for Thursdays at the Faulkner County Library, is off to a good start.

The first meeting was held April 2 at the library, 1900 Tyler St. in Conway, where it will be held each week at least through August, she said.

“We had six who participated. They seemed to have a good time,” Bowne said. “We had 11 who had signed up. The weather was kind of tricky. It was drizzly; then it was fine. I was happy we had that many.”

Bowne, an Arkansas GardenCorps service member, launched the Garden Club, which meets at 3:30 p.m. each Thursday.

She works through La Lucha Space, a nonprofit organization whose programs include The Locals and the Faulkner County Urban Farm Project, which is the garden at the library.

Bowne said her goal is to get kids, ages 7 and older, into the garden during the club meetings. At the first meeting, she gave them an introduction to the garden, she said, “and I had a lesson about land scarcity.”

Bowne said she cut an apple, which represented Earth, into fourths “and asked them to tell me how much of that we could plant.”

She subtracted parts of the apple as she told students facts about the Earth — three-fourths of Earth is covered with water; parts are covered with cities and highways; the weather is too cold to plant in some areas of the world, etc.

“There’s this tiny fraction of land that we can even plant food on,” Bowne said.

She said she told the children about the Faulkner County Urban Farm Project and how the produce is donated to a food pantry and to volunteers. She said the group discussed the benefits of planting a garden and having fresh, nutritious food.

“We planted some edible flowers — nasturtium and calendula — and onions and some black hollyhocks that are just really pretty,” Bowne said. “They planted a little sugar snap pea in a pot, a dwarf variety, and they got to take it home,” she said.

Sandra Leyva, executive director of The Locals, said the Garden Club is a great opportunity for children and the community.

“It’s just so important right now to do early nutrition education,” Leyva said. “One of the important aspects of the garden is that it’s an educational tool.”

She said the purpose of the garden isn’t just to grow the food, but to cultivate healthy habits, teaching kids where their food comes from and connecting them to that. The more they’re connected to how things grow, and they can see the process from seeds to fruit, the more likely they are to try those fresh fruits and vegetables, and the more likely they are to be excited about eating that fresh produce.”

Bowne said the children — and a couple of the parents — seemed to have a good time and learn something, too.

“The main thing is to get them excited about gardening,” Bowne said.

For more information, contact Bowne at stgail@hotmail.com or (501) 327-7482.

Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.

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