Nursery uses garden effort to cultivate sense of community
By Catherine Edman Daily Herald Staff Writer

Palatine students are growing vegetables like these for their families and for the Plant a Row for the Hungry project with seeds donated by Knupper Nursery & Landscape.

Daily Herald Photo/Mark Black

She'd supply the seeds. They had to plant and care for them.

This past spring, Gillis, the marketing manager at Knupper Nursery & Landscape, made an offer to any student in Palatine Elementary District 15.

Pick up free seeds, plant a garden - "hopefully with parent supervision," she joked - and donate any extra vegetables they grow to Plant a Row for the Hungry .

They took her up on the deal.

Once her invitation was printed through the Palatine District 15 Foundation newsletter, children and their parents stopped by to make their selections.

A dozen members of Paddock Elementary School's Brownie troop picked up their free seeds, which included corn, cucumbers, zucchini, bush beans, pole beans, carrots and radishes. Then, they got permission to plant a garden behind the school.

For Troop 1459, it's simply a continuation of a theme they've focused on during the last year, said co-leader Pat Willney, also an office manager at Knupper's.

"We were doing lot of responsibility things with the girls," she said. "We wanted to make them a little more aware of the community and what goes on there."

They've already made several vegetable donations from the garden to Plant a Row for the Hungry, which urges gardeners to plant more than they need, or to donate any surplus, for benefit of the area food pantries and soup kitchens.

That's where part two of Gillis' plan comes in to play: she wanted to make it even easier for gardeners to participate so she volunteered Knupper's as a drop-off site.

Anyone can take their surplus produce to the Palatine nursery, and the staff there will then drive it over to one of the participating food pantries.

Gillis is thrilled, to say the least, that the District 15 community - hundreds of students, in fact - took the nursery up on its offer to help Plant a Row. And that the investment is paying dividends: The nursery received 46 pounds of produce in just the first week of the campaign.

"Quite frankly I think that's an element that's been missing lately: the sense of community and responsibility for one another," Gillis said.

"I like the idea this is something the parent can teach the child and get an immediate benefit. It's win-win all around."

If you have any questions about the program, or drop-off requirements, call our Plant A Row hotline at (847) 806-4277, Northern Illinois Food Bank at (630) 443-6910, or e-mail us at Plantarow@dailyherald.com.