Eliot Middle School principal Peter Pannell, left, opens the ceremony dedicating the new garden at Eliot Middle School on Feb. 15, 2012. Other speakers included, from left: PUSD Superintendent Jon Gundry, Debbie Levin, president of the Environmental Media Association, and actor Mehcad Brooks.
by Timothy Rutt
Despite the threat of impending rain, students, administrators, and even Hollywood turned out to dedicate the new garden at Eliot MIddle School Wednesday morning.
The raised-bed garden is in memory of Eliot teacher Stephen Scott Buck, himself an avid gardener, who died in 2010.
According to Stephen Crosby, a sixth grade science teacher at Eliot, getting a garden in the school was a several year effort by himself, science teacher Roger Gray and Shirley Barrett, Pasadena Unified School District facilities supervisor, along with many other teachers, parents, and student volunteers -- not always willingly. Crosby said that students who had Saturday detention often spent it working on the garden.
What helped kickstart the garden was the participation of the Environmental Media Association, an environmental group that comes out of the entertainment industry. In fact, one of the major donors to the project was Cameron Diaz, who filmed "Bad Teacher" at Eliot.
Diaz was not there, much to everyone's disappointment, but actor Mehcad Brooks was ("Necessary Roughness," "True Blood") represented the Young Hollywood wing of EMA. According to Debbie Levin, EMA president, this was EMA's 17th garden.
The garden, consisting of citrus trees and nine drip-irrigated raised beds, will be used to provide hands-on science lessons for Eliot students. Teacher Gray said that it would even be active in the summer, growing fall crops such as sunflowers and quinoa, and would even have a role in history studies, as students learned Native American growing techniques: "three sisters" plantings, of corn, beans (which will grow on the corn stalks) and squash (which will cover the ground).
Crosby said that the garden took five months to construct. One of the features still to be installed is a bench dedicated to Buck.
More pictures after the jump.
LA Conservation Corps members prepare to plant fruit trees.
Nine raised beds -- three each for 6th, 7th, and 8th graders -- make up the bulk of the garden along Calavaras Street.
Strawberries are ready to go in as the drip lines are in place.
Actor Mehcad Taylor talks to Eliot students at the dedication.
