Youth Education Program!

The Master Gardener Education Garden in Grand Haven, Michigan was imagined as a place where MSUE Master Gardener Volunteers could educate youth.  At the very beginning I naively imagined that I would be bombarded with volunteers who were brimming with ideas and plans for teaching kids about plants and the environment.  I assumed that there were dozens of adult volunteers who were just waiting for an opportunity to create programs and curriculum for getting kids into the garden.

What I have learned in the last six years is that if I wanted a youth education program, I was going to have to start one myself.  However, wisdom had also taught me that if I waited to find that one perfect Master Gardener Volunteer who would partner with me, my success would be guaranteed.  Historically I throw myself into something when I'm bitten, but I wasn't about to go this one alone and end up at the bottom of a ravine with two broken legs. 

When I met Peggy Adams in 2009, I had a hunch that she might be The One.  Little did she know, she was a marked woman.  I was honest with Peggy.  Blunt.  The last thing I wanted was to haul a hapless MGV into this idea only to have her run screaming half way down the road.  I told her to think on it.  She did, and she said yes.


A generous $3,350.00 grant from the Youth Fund of the Grand Haven Area Community Foundation has enabled us to launch YEP! and use the Education Garden for its best intentions: as a hands-on environment where MSUE Master Gardener Volunteers can share their knowledge by teaching others.

We began the program in May with a great bunch of kids.  In the first six sections we've educated the kids about soils, monocots and dicots, native plants and the life cycle and habitat needs of the Monarch butterfly, to name a few.  The older kids have designed, planned and planted three new beds--tactile, taste and fragrant, and the younger kids have planted a vegetable garden and learned about worm compost.


We have a fantastic group of adult Master Gardener Volunteers who are leading the kids through the lessons (and I am sure that the adults are learning a few things along the way, too).


We are all having a great time and look forward to what lies ahead.