Thanks to Kyra Weisel, the kiddos at St. Alban's Preschool have a garden to call their own.
Kyra, 17, spent the spring building a sustainable garden and water conservation system for the preschool as part of her Gold Award project with the Girl Scouts of Southern Arizona. She put about 80 hours into the project.
"We, for many years, had been trying to get a sustainable garden going, but between rabbits eating everything and everyone not remembering to water it, we had never gotten a good system going," says Colleen Fabel Epstein, the preschool director. "She thought she could help with it, and she did."
Kyra, now newly graduated from The Gregory School, rebuilt the garden, adding a gated structure to keep animals out, a shade to protect the plants and a rainwater harvesting barrel. She also added a drip hose to water the garden consistently and planted lettuce, kale, cauliflower, onions and tomatoes, along with herbs and flowers in separate spaces, she says.
The garden is about 8 feet long and about 3 feet wide, Fabel Epstein says.
The preschool had wanted to build a garden for years. Kyra Weisel made it happen.
"My goal was to create a garden that was sustainable and would prosper and grow nicely, and I just wanted to teach the kids about water conservation and gardening, so they could learn things they could pass on or grow up thinking about," Kyra says.
With a mom and grandma who gardened, Kyra has grown up around it herself. To earn her Silver Award for the Girl Scouts, she created a website all about water conservation and its benefits.
"I wanted the kids to understand that you don't always have to use new water but can use what we have in the environment by using rainwater that you collect," she says.
She helped older kids plant pea seeds in Styrofoam cups and read to and colored with younger classes.
Kyra will attend the University of Arizona in the fall to study psychology and business.
The whole project, funded by donations and contributions by the school and St. Alban's Episcopal Church, cost less than $500, Fabel Epstein says.
Kyra worked with a team to construct the garden and says a church committee will care for the garden and teachers will incorporate it into their lessons in coming years.
Kyra Weisel, right, spent about 80 hours constructing a garden for preschoolers to earn her Girl Scout Gold Award.
"Now the preschoolers can see the fruits and vegetables growing and can take ownership as they get bigger and see how the water affects it if it doesn't get watered," Fabel Epstein says. "It dries out."
