Brownsville Herald, Brownsville Texas, USA Children create second butterfly garden at convention center
By RYAN HENRY Island Breeze February 16, 2006 United Kingdoms tourist Victor Hitchings peered through his digital camera and framed his subject butterflies. Last week, Hitchings returned to South Padre Island for his third time, drawn much like his quarry to a butterfly garden outside the Convention Centre. Hitchings discovered the bed of waist-high flowering plants through a recommendation from Roland Wauer, author of Butterflies of the Lower Rio Grande Valley. This garden is mentioned as the best garden on South Padre Island, Hitchings said. Its the hotspot on the Island. Last week, students of the Success Center at the Point Isabel Independent School District planted another plot of native plants to form a secondary butterfly garden at the convention center. The new garden is near the first one they planted approximately a year-and-a-half ago. The students of the Success Center are good kids who have violated one of the codes of student conduct, said educator Shane Wilson, who taught the children during the project. Using about $450 collected and donated by the Outdoor and Wildlife Program hosted by the St. Andrews by the Bay Episcopal Church in Port Isabel, the students planted Texas lantana, blue mist, chili pequin and others. The birds love (the chilies), Island birdwatcher Scarlet Colley said. The children enjoyed the community service project, mother Marisol Rodriguez said while watching her son Ricardo work. As a 12-year-old student at Derry Elementary, he was the youngest worker among students ranging through high school ages. I can see hes enjoying himself, Rodriguez said. And hes learning something. Port Isabel High School student Pablo Garcia, 17, said the garden was his first Success Center project. He helped the others dig the bed with shovels to remove roots before planting and watering the plants. This teaches us how to help the environment out and the birds and butterflies, right here, Garcia said. Projects like this help the community and provide students with science lessons, Wilson said. They feel like they can do something, Wilson said. They come up and see what they did years ago, and it instills a lot of community pride in them. The students havent been able to do many projects this year because of state funding cuts to the Success Centers budget and programs like it throughout Texas last year, Wilson said. We used to have quite a bit (of the programs), Wilson said. This is a service-learning program. The difference between a service-learning program and community service is that kids plan it, they design it and they do it all themselves. To fund the Success Center, the program now relies upon local fundraisers, such as the outdoors show earlier this month. Were also running a kids redfish cup tournament April 22, Wilson said. All the proceeds from that will come back to the school district to fund service learning and help the students who are at risk. ______________________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: https://secure.mallorn.com/mailman/listinfo/community_garden
