July 8 – Children find inspiration in many things. For the students of the Oak Manor 4-H Club of Bexar County, a small project blossomed into something greater and with much more meaning for their community.

Cooperative Extension Program 4-H and Youth Development Agent Sayako Seymour led the recently completed garden project for students of the Oak Manor 4-H Club. The idea

Seymour Sayako

to go about creating a garden was sparked with a small container garden project that students worked on initially. After expressing their interest in building a larger garden, Seymour led the charge in gaining funding, materials and other support. The project was supported in collaboration of Prairie View A&M University Cooperative Extension Program, Texas A&M AgriLife and Prospera Housing Community Services with funding from the Youth Garden Coordinator’s SALE grant and the program’s horticulture department.

Seymour is extremely proud of all of the hard work the students put in to make this garden happen in only three days work. Students were involved with the garden every step of the way from its planning, to organizing the materials and building the garden beds. For many of the students, this experience as very new and was an exceptional way for them to be introduced to the idea of agriculture. “The majority of the kids here are African refugees, and they have never been exposed to how gardening works,” said Seymour. “They have been so fascinated by everything. This was my first big 4-H project that I was the lead in, so it was so rewarding to see how much the kids enjoyed it and seeing everyone working together to make this happen.”

For the club’s future, Seymour looks forward to strengthening it by increasing enrollments, volunteers, and have them compete at roundups. She plans to work more with Prospera as well to increase visibility for PVAMU’s CEP.

Take a look at Oak Manor 4-H Club’s project here.

This work was supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, 1890 Extension Formula Program projects under Section 1444.

Taelor Smith

 

Taelor Smith
Communications Specialist
tasmith@pvamu.edu
(936) 261-5155