1. YMCA
GARDEN
PROJECT
FALL 2012
Instructor: Patricia Clark
HUS 352: INTERVENTIONS fOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES
Site: YMCA DAYCARE PROGRAM
DAMARISCOTTA, MAINE
Participants:
Tara Johnson

2. Advocacy Statement
Provide nutritional education to and ongoing support of families
participating in the YMCA Daycare program. A time line beginning
now will include the construction of a vegetable garden. Building,
maintaining and seasonal harvest of this garden will assist staff in their
meeting stated objectives and possibly more.
• Partnering with parents and community in the collection of
necessary garden supplies and building of a lasagna garden
• Educating how food is grown how it arrives at our grocery stores
• Growing seedlings to plant in our vegetable garden
• Watering, Weeding, Fertilizing, Cultivating and Eating!!!

3. After struggling with what to do for an advocacy project I finally came
around to simply seeking a local need. The YMCA staff decided on a
garden project. I mentioned my gardening skills and affiliation with
the Knox/Lincoln county Extension Program and they said, "We'll get
back to you."
After a number of meetings, e-mails and phone calls it looked as
though attempts to locate grant monies for the costly construction of a
raised garden bed would result in the project being postponed until
Spring 2013.
Then Liz Stanley, Horticulture Program Coordinator with the
University of Maine Cooperative Extension for Knox-Lincoln and
Waldo Counties suggested "lasagna gardening". She explained that fall
was the perfect time to build and that young children absolutely loved
the process.
A lasagna garden is made by choosing a sunny spot, putting down
newspapers and cardboard as a mulching/weed block, then piling on
alternating layers of healthy fertilizer, hay/straw etc.
A "wish list" was posted and within ten days donations from parents,
community and staff satisfied the list of everything needed.
What I have learned from participating in the advocacy project is that
there will always be needs within our communities. Flushing them out
and engaging community support was not difficult for the "garden
project" because materials were readily available. However, that is not
to say that all monetary needs will be met. I was saddened by the visible
inequities existing between pre-schools I visited.
I also learned that children enjoy and benefit from outdoor physical
activities. The YMCA teachers expressed several times how glad they
were that the pre-schooler’s would be exercising their fine and gross
motor skills in the garden project. I was surprised to learn just how
beneficial digging, twisting, chopping, scooping and pouring are to
overall child development.
In retrospect, one thing I could have done differently is to have
immediately researched a wider variety of grant opportunities. Out of
curiosity I would still like to pursue several garden grant applications
since there has been a lot of awareness raised around "farm-to-school"
programs.

4. Involvement in the community project assignment was rewarding. The
fact that projects do take on a life of their own underscores what great
things can and do happen when people are simply invited to
participate.