March 30 – April 5 2005

Outdoor classroom blooms

By Genevieve Shope
Staff Writer

Brad Baker, president of Baker Creative in Wyncote, helps children irrigate a garden at the Gutman Early Learning Center.

For kids, getting a little dirty almost guarantees fun. But for a group of area preschoolers, it meant much more.
Students at the Mary Bert Gutman Early Learning Center in Melrose Park spent a good part of the summer with their hands in the soil, literally. With the help of Baker Creative, a Wyncote landscaping firm, the students learned traditional Jewish concepts while working in their own mitzvah garden, growing flowers, herbs and vegetables that were sold to raise money for charity.

“It was so clear how well the students understood the lessons they had learned,” said Dina Wolfman Baker, vice president of Baker Creative.

Intended to be an outdoor classroom so that students could grasp certain mitzvot, or good deeds, they learned the importance of caring for the earth and giving charitably, which in Judaism is referred to as “tzedakah,” she said.

“The kids were very pleased with themselves,” said the school’s director, Helen Victor Turk, explaining that the students collected almost $100 which was donated to a fund against hunger through Jewish Family and Children’s Service.

“They gave the money with such satisfaction of what they were able to do for others,” Wolfman Baker said. “It was an overwhelming moment.”

Work on the garden began several years ago with Brad Baker, president of Baker Creative, clearing out the heavily overgrown area as part of a Congregational Mitzvah Day event, Victor Turk said. The space continued to lay fallow until he again volunteered his time in May 2004 to create the 30-by-20-foot garden.

Baker, a Cornell University graduate and Pennsylvania certified horticulturist, was recently awarded an honorable mention in the theme garden category of the Pennsylvania Landscape and Nursery Association’s 2005 Award for Excellence in Landscape Design for his work.

“It’s always nice to be recognized,” Baker said, “but the look on these kids’ faces was the only award I needed. You can see a spark in their eyes that they are learning and getting so much enjoyment out of it.”
According to Baker, it was a challenge to make the space a functional outdoor classroom – safe, clean and fun, yet a place where children could actually be taught.

To achieve that goal, he ran lengths of 8-inch PVC piping through the garden and along its edges, providing a reservoir for water from a distant hose and a perfect place to seat the children. He used small, hand-held pumps and attached long hoses so the kids could pump the water from the reservoir, working together to maintain the garden.

“It’s so important for the kids to have a hands-on experience,” Victor Turk said, “and to realize that all kids don’t have what they do.”

Growing bell peppers, green beans, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, parsley and basil, the kids were also able to understand the their food comes from the earth, rather then the supermarket, she said.

“Four- and 5-year-olds were able to articulate that this garden gave them the means to eat as wells as others,” Wolfman Baker said. “The human values we were trying to produce had clearly been planted and sewn.”

Now that teachers and students have a better understanding of the garden, expectations for next year are high, Victor Turk said. The students will hopefully be growing even more fruits, vegetables and flowers and donating all proceeds from sales to charity.

“In fighting hunger, these kids are not too small to do something meaningful,” she said.

To contact Brad Baker at Baker Creative, call 215-884-4978 or go to www.BakerCreative.com.

 

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