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closeKids corner: Students volunteer to pull invasive weeds, create wildlife habitat
Senior project backed by Crescent Valley Alliance
Hugh McMillan
Kids corner
Way back in April, Hanna Broback, then a Peninsula High School senior who was working on her senior project, decided to spearhead a Crescent Valley Alliance partnership with Gig Harbor Cooperative Nursery School to restore wildlife habitat on the hillside between the Masonic Lodge on Vernhardson Street and Gig Harbor City Park at Crescent Creek.
Teacher Terrie Dignam and the school’s children have been avid observers of the deer and crows that visit the hillside overgrown with Himalaya blackberries. They take walks down the hill to look for ducks at Crescent Creek. They know that wildlife is bountiful in the area, and they wanted to make an inviting area for more native wildlife near their play yard.
Broback, now studying sustainable agriculture at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., drew up plans for restoring the area. CVA supported her with a grant through the National Wildlife Federation and Boeing to buy native plants from Woodbrook Nursery. Tacoma Nature Center also donated plants.
“But first,” Lucinda Wingard wrote in an e-mail, “we had to get rid of the invasive blackberries.”
In March and April, CVA members and the parents and children of the school began to dig weeds.
“In May, we had a planting party, and all summer long Hanna Broback watered and CVA members weed whacked, pulled out more invasives and mulched,” Wingard wrote.
The Co-op Board has registered the site with the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife and National Wildlife Federation as a Schoolyard Wildlife Habitat.
On Oct. 28, I had the honor and pleasure of joining the kids, teachers and parents as the school celebrated its nascent wildlife park by erecting a bird box and planting more trees.
It was one of our Puget Sound rainy days, but the sun crept upon the scene at just the right time to enable the kids to partake in planting some of the trees they hope will make an inviting lure for wildlife.
In early November, Barbara Carr sent out an e-mail that extolled the enthusiasm of the group and its work on the Wildlife Habitat.
“Last Saturday,” she wrote, “in spite of heavy rain, we had a great turnout at the garden! We had many excellent volunteers from Boy Scout Troop 217 who contributed 44 hours of community service to the garden.
“Altogether, we used almost 80 volunteer hours. We had garden soup, bread and hot cider to fortify the group.”
In four hours, they took down the fence and fence posts, removed and stored the tomato cages and garden gates, pulled up plants to start a compost pile, cleaned out a shed for storage, and spread two large truck loads of manure on the garden site.
“They also managed to have a great time and treasured the generous community support,” Carr wrote.
The City of Gig Harbor pitched in with shovels and rakes for the volunteers to use and bolstered the garden storage building with a strong center post.
“We have garden applications available now,” Carr wrote, “and would welcome all gardeners interested in joining us next garden season. Please let people know about us and hand out applications, if possible.”
For more information, e-mail Dignam at terdig@aol.com.