St. Paul’s Lutheran School in Merced gets help with community garden

A small private school in Merced wants to see a mostly untouched rectangle of land blossom into a community garden, and on Tuesday, a local lumber yard helped the school’s vision take root.

St. Paul’s Lutheran School is working on developing eight raised garden beds, one for each grade level at the preschool-through-sixth-grade campus, which sits behind the McKee Road church of the same name.

Big Creek Lumber, which is at Castle Commerce Center in Atwater, donated enough materials Tuesday for the garden’s first two beds.

Principal Amy Mello said teachers at the school will be able to develop beds to fit the curriculum for each grade level. “For some of them, it might be vegetables and plants,” she said. “For others, it might be creating a habitat.”

Mello said the gardens should help teachers add lessons on good stewardship of the environment.

The roughly 100 kindergarten through sixth-grade students streamed out of classrooms Tuesday to help carry the 10 50-quart bags of soil from a Big Creek truck. Some also carried the redwood boards.

Michelle Overbeck, marketing manager for Big Creek, said the 70-year-old company has its own redwood mill in Davenport. She said the School Garden Program Grant is aimed at helping schools develop gardening activities and think about sustainability.

The company has five branches and the grants go to schools within a 25-mile radius of each one. Another grant was awarded to Our Lady of Mercy Catholic School in Merced, officials said. There are 10 grants in all this year.

Daniel Fernandes, the branch manager, said the Atwater location has been at Castle for eight years. He said the company prides itself on customer service. “We want to support the community,” he said.

Officials said they expect to take applications for next year’s round of grants in the fall. They look for schools with a plan.

For more information, go to www.big-creek.com/about-big-creek/community.

This story was originally published March 15, 2016 at 5:06 PM with the headline "St. Paul’s Lutheran School in Merced gets help with community garden."