It may be difficult to get kids to eat their veggies, but at North Augusta Middle School, a group of young gardeners are learning to love to grow them.
Gardeners of the Galaxy is the gardening club at the school. Students just finished their first round of meeting and growing, which culminated in a Thanksgiving dinner last Tuesday for club members and their families.
Some kids in the club joined to make friends, and said they have. Some, growing up in a world with consistent global warming threats, said they joined to learn about the environment.
North Augusta Middle School has raised beds and a greenhouse; and, this year, they've been used to grow vegetables (cabbage, lettuce, broccoli and more), native flowers like Black-eyed Susans, and herbs.
"This is my first year at NAMS," said club adviser Kristen Shuford. "When I was interviewing with (Principal Kimbra Meek), I saw that we have all these unused raised boxes; and I said, 'I would really love to do something with them,' and she told me to go for it, which was really nice."
Gardeners of the Galaxy had around 25 members this year. The club's name is a spin-off of the Marvel Studios movie "Guardians of the Galaxy."
"I feel like we always have our face in a screen, and we don't really go outside much anymore, and sometimes we need to experience what it was like before things like that were invented," said seventh-grader Evahnee Sweeney.
Read the full Aiken Standard article here.