WMG Volume 7 • Issue 24 November 25, 2020
Wilton Manors Gazette FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/WMGAZETTE
COMMUNITY
Equality Garden Club Breathes New Life Into
WILTON MANORS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL BUTTERFLY GARDEN By Christiana Lilly As bleak as 2020 has been, the Equality club will be the official groundskeepers Garden Club is creating beauty at Wilton for the garden, which also has picnic tables, benches, stepping stones and Manors Elementary School. With children attending school at other places to relax. “It was in really bad shape,” said Mario home this spring and summer, the school’s butterfly garden in the courtyard Rios, who serves on the board of the club. fell into complete disarray. When children “It was full of weeds, a lot of dead plants, returned to school in a hybrid model, we lost a lot of plants and we had to redo it.” school staff reached out The club spent $500 to to the garden club to NOW, THE purchase new plants and help them bring it back put in mulch. Now, there to life. GARDEN CLUB are Panama rose shrubs, “It’s really like an WILL BE THE Jatropha trees, dwarf burning outdoor learning bushes, scorpion tails, hue classroom and a place OFFICIAL and different species where you can go to GROUNDSKEEPERS herbs, of milkweed, which attracts enjoy nature and have a little bit of peace outside FOR THE GARDEN, butterflies. Rios expects that in a few months it will be of the classroom,” WHICH ALSO “back to life.” said Melissa Holtz, the HAS PICNIC Not only does the garden principal at Wilton serve as a relaxing place to Manors Elementary TABLES, BENCHES, have lunch or take a break, School. STEPPING STONES but Holtz said that teachers The school had a will also read stories to previous relationship AND OTHER there or teach them with Equality Garden PLACES TO RELAX. children about nature and the life Club. In 2019, they were cycle of butterflies. It’s also stumped as to why their butterfly garden was not thriving. The a quiet place for children with special volunteers came in and taught them about needs to decompress. While the school is Florida native plants and tips to help them not at full capacity, there are 260 children attending school in person and the garden keep it going. However, it became too overwhelming is a place where they can easily be 6 feet during the pandemic. Now, the garden apart.
Students learning in the courtyard at Wilton Manors Elementary School. Photo courtesy of Wilton Manors Elementary School.
It’s also an opportunity for the children to see a tenet of the International Baccalaureate school in action: helping. “One of the things that we teach our kids is to take action when they see a problem that they have the ability to make a difference.
We have a community member who sees that we have a need and they’re willing to come into the school and take action to help us,” she explained. “It’s out of the kindness of their heart. They see we have a need and they jumped into action to help us.” WMG
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