Sustainability Spotlight: Ashlee Hendricks and Sarah Phillips at Maxey Elementary School
December’s Sustainability Spotlight is shining on Ashlee Hendricks and Sarah Phillips, two passionate parents at Maxey Elementary School! Hendricks and Phillips volunteer for the Maxey PTO and have taken the lead on garden restoration projects at Maxey this fall.
Hendricks got the idea to start renovating the garden after noticing that the courtyard area at Maxey was underutilized, limiting the potential for outdoor learning.
She felt it was important for all Maxey students to have a safe, accessible outdoor space to learn and actively experience nature. She quickly recruited Phillips, and the pair started work on renovating the courtyard and garden to improve access for both students and teachers.
Neither Hendricks nor Phillips had any prior gardening experience before starting work on the Maxey garden, but that didn’t stop them from creating a space for students to thrive and connect with their environment and peers.
"Being outside or creating a garden space doesn't have to be some humongous undertaking to start. I think that even if you only have a couple square feet, there's still value in being out and being in the dirt and having kids interact with plants, you don't have to have a green thumb.”
Hendricks and Phillips place a strong emphasis on inclusivity and community in Garden Club. They invite students of all ages and backgrounds to participate in monthly garden meetings and have had an impressive 43 students take part in gardening activities.
“The heart of what we want the Garden Club to be is that everybody matters. Every color matters,” Hendricks said. “We get to plant that, we can make those choices, we can include, and we can work hard, or we can create something for the future by doing something now.”
In just a few months, the garden has successfully provided the outdoor experiences Hendricks and Philips set out to create.
Monthly club meetings have included plant scavenger hunts, monarch observations and making entries in personalized outdoor journals.
“When you have these hands-on experiences where you’re out in the dirt and work very tactile, very hands on, I think that just sticks in kids brains in a different way,” Phillips said.
Recently, the club planted over 400 bulbs in their garden and around their school. Students paired the planting with a poster celebrating how their differences make their school more beautiful.
Hendricks and Phillips said they are proudest of the community they’ve created at Maxey. Phillips observed that over the months, students have become more comfortable with the outdoor space, the creatures they encounter and each other.
"Any sense of community that we can create within our schools is so valuable. That is what I think holds us together. It's as simple as knowing that we've got we've got a friend here and people who can help us."
In the future, Hendricks and Phillips would like to continue work on Maxey’s garden and landscaping and eventually hope to have an area that is accessible to the community. They plan to use funds the club earns through the Green Schools Recognition Program to help make this possible. By focusing on student leadership and participation, they say, the club and garden will thrive far into the future.
They hope that other schools and parents can learn from their example, that you don’t have to be a garden expert or have grand plans to get a garden and community going.
“If our experience has taught us anything, it’s that there’s a lot more people than you might think that are interested in nature and being outside and being part of something,” Phillips explained.
Hendricks and Phillips have shown that big community changes can happen with small steps, teamwork, a pair of gloves, and a just little bit of elbow grease. We are so proud of the inclusive and inspiring community they have built with the students at Maxey and cannot wait to see the garden thrive and for students to be able to learn outdoors for many years to come.
