Longfellow K-8 Spanish Immersion School breaks ground for new learning garden

By Delle Willett; San Diego; August 11, 2021

Longfellow K-8 Spanish Immersion School broke ground in late July for a new learning garden, intended to be a learning resource for the students as well as for the community of Bay Park.

A long-time coming, the garden was made possible through the collaborative effort of the Legacy Team of the American Society of Landscape Architects, San Diego Chapter, the ACE Mentor San Diego program, and the Garden Committee at Longfellow Elementary.

The goal of the Legacy Team’s Project is to use its resources to best assist the Garden Committee in their efforts to grow their student garden and best accommodate a space for learning and nourishment. Using donated materials, student perspective and persistence, the Legacy Team is excited to be breaking ground on the project.

After a lengthy Covid pause, the Legacy Team has now organized with the Garden Committee to restart the project and began construction in late July with the aim of completing the work in late August, prior to students returning to campus.

Background: In 2008, ASLA introduced the Legacy Project, which seeks to promote positive change in the host city of the annual national conference. The host chapter teams up with the local affiliate of the ACE Mentor Program to design a project to be installed after the meeting. In 2011, the San Diego Chapter hosted the national meeting and worked with ACE Mentor San Diego to design and install the HabiTaft garden at Taft Elementary School.

After the ASLA Conference in San Diego in the fall of 2019, the ASLA Legacy Team, in collaboration with ACE Mentors, worked to combine student ideas and vendor donations into a design to benefit a local site.

In the months leading up to the conference, the Legacy Committee began working with various vendors including Street Furniture Australia, Rainbird, Greenscreens, Belgard, and USA Shade to garner interest and begin the planning phase of the project. Months of communication led up to the conference weekend where they had a chance to meet donating vendors in person and thank them for their participation.

At the conclusion of the conference the vendors mark their products for donation and ASLA arranges to pick up and store all materials that can be used in a project design until they are installed at the project location.

The Longfellow Learning Garden team is Interim Principal, Mrs. Stacy Jones; Vice Principal, Mr. Eric Wilson; PTO President, Celeste Parry; PTO Treasurer, Sheila Quinlan; Garden Educator, Dorabel Esparza, primary garden coordinator this coming year.

Said Celeste Parry, Los Compadres de Escuela Longfellow and PTO President, “We are thrilled that this project is underway. We want to create a campus that is healthy, thriving, and full of life in every sense of the word. Thank you to the Legacy Project team for helping us build this special place for our kids!”