Fifteen O’Dowd students are participating in a new Beyond O’Dowd Garden program this summer, completing their Anawim, Friends, or 201Club (students who complete more than double the school requirement of 100- hours of service learning) service projects gardening with elementary students in local school gardens.
As part of their training, the students visited Community United Elementary School, on International Avenue in Oakland, where they spent three hours rehabilitating the school’s edible garden and working with students. The CUES garden was funded by the Clinton Foundation in 2015, but the school did not have the resources to maintain the space and it became overgrown.
O’Dowd students pulled weeds, created a new path, helped to reconnect the drip system, and worked with CUES students to plant tomato, squash, and cucumber seedlings grown in the Living Lab, as well as bean and flower seeds.
