Article and Photos by Linda Charlton
At Mascotte Charter Elementary, Thursday was the last school day before the holidays, a day to dress festively, to wish each other a happy holiday, and the day for the school’s 4th and 5th-grade gardening students to thank the donors who made their brand new greenhouse possible. Fundraising for the $2,000 project took place in the spring, and while there were some private donors, it was the three corporate donors that substantially made the project possible. Science/gardening teacher Rachel Stansell reached out to all three to come to see the fruits of their donations: Caroline Jones from Cherry Lake Tree Farm, Hershell Womble from the Groveland-Mascotte Garden Club, and Diana Leist from the Mascotte charter board.
Speaking of the gardening students, Leist said “they’re doing a lot of good work on it. They love it. They stay excited about it.”
Womble has long been a champion of supporting young people in agriculture, so when he read about the students’ fundraising efforts earlier in the year, he easily persuaded his garden club to pitch in and donate.
For Jones of Cherry Lake, the gardening students’ fundraising came at the perfect time. The company annually puts on a Farm Run, with proceeds going to local school projects. They were looking for a suitable cause to donate to when they saw in a newspaper article that Mascotte Charter was fundraising.
“We saw they needed $1,000, so we donated the last $1,000,” Jones said. “We love that they’re right up the road from us, and we have a lot of employees with kids who go here.”
After visiting the greenhouse and posing for photos with the gardening students, the trio joined the class for a pre-holiday spaghetti brunch, complete with salad grown in part by the gardening students. For the occasion, students had harvested a variety of lettuces, plus radishes and peppers. There are more plants (vegetables and herbs) in the raised planting bins, plus some newly germinated plants in the greenhouse.
And with the number of tomatoes they have planted, there is definitely some tomato sauce in the future — most likely some salsa as well.
Linda Charlton is a freelance writer/musician/photographer based in south Lake County. Her favorite hobby is unraveling mysteries.
