National Volunteer Week - Meet Cathy Rager

Cathy Rager is a biology and environmental sciences teacher for 9th through 12th graders in the Brentwood Middle/High School. Four years ago she initiated a garden project to plant an herb garden and a butterfly garden with her students. With the help of Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, she has sustained these gardens and a traditional annual planting bed on school grounds. As a Volunteer Garden Steward, Cathy organizes planting days when all her students take turns planting and mulching the annual beds. She also organizes student helpers to weed and water the gardens. Two years ago she helped organize a high school Garden Club that now takes responsibility for much of the summer tending.

“It's contagious,” says Cathy about the gardening spirit. Senior students are required to do graduation projects, and she has had an art student make beautiful pottery garden orbs; another make a bird bath; and a third help supervise the organizing of the planting. The interest is spreading to other kids and teachers beyond her biology classes, too. The Home Economics Class uses the herb garden for cooking and learning about the medicinal properties of the plants. The Wood Shop classes have constructed wren houses for the garden. Other science classes are doing population studies, measuring ambient weather conditions, and learning about identifying species. Math classes use the gardens for geometry calculations. An English teacher has had students write poems about trees, and the art classes have done drawings and paintings of the gardens. Two beautiful batiks of garden flowers created by students now hang near the library entrance.

Cathy reports that the garden is reaching into homes as well, and she has heard parents swapping recipes around the herb garden as they wait to pick up kids after school. “They are so proud of what they have done,” she says of the students. It is volunteers like Cathy who plant the seeds that grow into whole gardens of opportunities for these young gardeners of the future!

Volunteer at one of the 170 Community Gardens in 20 western Pa. counties
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