When students have free time, many take the chance to check their social media accounts, take selfies, go on the computer, etc. However, one student used his free time to contribute to the RHS campus.

With Spring in full bloom, all sorts of plants are enhancing our beautiful campus, including the school garden.  For many, including myself, who did not know RHS had a school garden, the garden is located near the V buildings by the bus loop.

Kelly Taylor, RHS sophomore, saw that the garden needed some help, so he built brand new garden beds to make the garden look fresh and new.  With the help of five other students, including Alexis Duong, Matt Smith, Trevor Patton, Amithab Arumugam and Jessica Wadman, fifteen garden beds were built.

“I wanted to help out my friend Kelly, and I got some community service out of it,” Trevor Patton said.

Besides making the garden look better, Kelly wanted to make a difference and contribute to the ILS students’ educations.

“I knew how the boxes could benefit the ILS program, and how they could teach the independent living students how to grow plants and take care of nature,” Kelly said.

Before Kelly built the new garden beds, there were older ones built three years previously.  The ILS students used those beds to plant and upkeep gardens until the pipes broke.  For a while, the students did not have any garden beds, and they could not work on the skills used for gardening.

Mrs. King, an ILS teacher, teamed up with culinary teacher Mrs. Andrews to start the gardens up again.  Now, there are fifteen new garden beds that can be shared by multiple classes on campus.

“Mrs. Andrews uses the garden for her culinary class and we use them to teach our students gardening skills.  I would love for the gardens to be incorporated into more classes on campus. Maybe the science department can use them to measure the soil content.  I think it would be cool if the whole school could use the garden in some way,” said Mrs. King.

Kelly and his friends have made the gardens look better, brought back learning opportunities that were gone for a while, and have set a great example of how to give back to your school and community.