Escuela seniors get new garden

Heather Young/Atascadero News - Zucchini bread made with zucchini from the garden. The zucchini and squash in the photo were grown in Escuela del Rio’s garden.

ATASCADERO — With the idea of sprucing up Escuela del Rio Seniors’ backyard with a couple of raised garden beds, director Mike Kosin went into Home Depot and asked to have any broken pallets to use for the planters.

Instead, he left with more than enough wood to make those two beds, and a couple of benches, and additional raised beds. He also got a $100 Home Depot gift card, which was used to purchase garden tools and some plants. The rest of the items — the wood for the edging and additional plants — were donated by staff and other individuals.

“Our backyard, prior to this, was dirt, rocks and weeds,” Kosin said. “This is an upgrade from what I would have done with pallets.”

The entire project — including the building of the planters and benches and the planting of the garden — was installed by staff and clients. Kosin said they he, along with several clients, built the items in the garden that used the wood.

One client said his favorite part of the project was using the sander to smooth the picnic benches already in the yard.

“They just made our yard incredibly more useful than what we had going,” Kosin said.

One client, Johnny, worked at Bay Laurel Nursery and had experience working with plants. Johnny said he likes the new backyard and helped build the benches, as well as the raised bed, putting in the edging and spreading rock on the paths.

“It looks good,” client Bert said.

The garden includes produce such as Japanese eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, beans and more.

“We cook everything here,” instructor Jenny Kim said. “It’s super fun. They get a kick out of it.”

The program is for clients that are older adults and not able to work or attend the day program. The age range of adults in the program currently is 44 to 71.

Instructor Rebecca Russell said the backyard has since become the place to be. In addition to hanging out in the back, the clients weed and water everything.

“Mike has taught a lot of these guys how to use [the machinery],” Kim said.

To raise money for Escuela del Rio, which has four programs within the nonprofit, Kosin puts on a concert every summer. This year, The Salty Suites will perform on Aug. 25. For more details, go to www.escueladelrio.org or call 466-4048.



For the complete article see the 07-11-2012 issue.

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