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SOS students build garden for local high school

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Alexa Culbert
  • 42nd Air Base Wing Public Affairs
Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala. --  Squadron Officer School students volunteered their time to build a garden for Carver High School, May 16, 2015, Montgomery, Alabama.

The garden will be used to supply fresh vegetables for Carver's culinary arts classes and to teach students how to grow food.

The project caught the eye of Capt. Scott Church, SOS flight commander, because of his interest in gardening, and his flight was looking for ways to help out the community.

"A couple months ago, we were asked to make a real effort to be present in the community," said Church. "If we really want to be leaders in the community, and we want to interface and serve the people that we are defending, we have to be in touch with them and see what they need and help where we can."

SOS students took the first step in helping the high school by raising $750 for supplies to build the garden.  With supplies in hand, about 25 SOS students then constructed the garden with raised beds, planted two peach trees and an assortment of vegetables and placed soaker hoses throughout the beds to make watering easier.

"There are so many things SOS students can help us with that we are not capable of doing," said Dianna Wilkerson, Carver High School culinary arts teacher.  "We really appreciated the funds donated to build the garden, because we did not have the funds."

The garden that will grow and provide learning experiences for the culinary arts students is the same garden that will grow partnerships between service members and the high school.

Church brings SOS students to the high school at least once every five weeks to talk to the students. He and Wilkerson will care for the garden during the summer months until the high school students arrive for the next school year in September.

"I would like to say thank you. I really do appreciate the students from SOS coming out and doing this," Wilkerson said. "I want to say that not only are they serving us by protecting us, but they are also serving us in so many other ways.  They make a lot of sacrifices for us to be free, and to take the opportunity to do this for our students, I appreciate it."