Brenda Griffin of Pink Hill Elementary, center, and the school's grant-writing committee accept their grant award from Patricia Bizzell, president of the Lenoir County Extension Master Gardeners. With Griffin are fellow Pink Hill faculty members, from left, Bena Miller, Mikayla Mozingo and Stephanie Kollock. Submitted photo.

Students at three schools will benefit from new gardening projects funded by Lenoir County Extension Master Gardeners through grant awards presented recently.

Grant winners recognized at the Master Gardeners’ annual awards and recognition dinner were Kaitlyn Hill of Northwest Elementary School, Diane Jones of Lenoir County Learning Academy and the grant-writing committee of Pink Hill Elementary School headed by Brenda Griffin.

The grant checks, each for $400, were presented by Patricia Bizzell, president of the Lenoir County group on Dec. 10.

The Pink Hill project is designed to combat erosion on the campus and provide another avenue for students to merge gardening and academic activities. “We have an area on our school property that’s beginning to show erosion and we wanted to plant some weeping willow trees there.

But we wanted to take it a step farther,” Griffin said. Students will nurture the trees, monitor their growth, record how the change of seasons affects the trees and incorporate their observations into math and writing lessons. The school will also place a plaque at each tree to honor “some of the people in our community who have been such great supporters of our school.”

Lenoir County Learning Academy students will plant a garden with their grant award, learning about the life cycle of plants and where food comes from, according to Jones. “I wrote this grant because we believe in exposing our children to different aspects of life,” she said. “I thought it would be a great idea to expose them to plant life because it builds accountability and responsibility.” The school’s hope is that gardening with give students “alternatives for healthy living and healthy eating.”

Hill, a Master Gardener grant winner all three years the grant has been offered, plans to use this year’s award to provide students with a hands-on learning activity about the life cycle of a plant. “We are going to propagate different plants to show them how we can grow plants in a variety of ways and not just through planting seeds,” she said. Using rootings, clippings and plant division, the project is expected to produce “offspring” from parent plants that will then be given to students “to take home and share with their families what they’ve learned.”