Nepali employee shares gardening talents for Licking Heights student project

Community is always in bloom at Everest Elementary — no matter the season. This summer, Nepali custodian Santa Gurung helped fourth grade teacher Renee Ayers maintain her students’ class garden.

Ayers, who teaches science at Everest Elementary, has grown a garden for the past three years with her class. The students usually grow the necessary ingredients to make salsa and then prepare a fresh batch to share with school employees once they harvest the plants. They also grow a pollinator garden, which Ayers uses to teach students about the importance of insects.

Ayers admits that while she is passionate about science, she is not a natural gardener — which is where Gurung, who was the assigned custodian in her hallway last year, stepped in.

“I always make friends with the custodians,” Ayers says. “It’s because I make a lot of messes as a science teacher, but I try to make kids clean up as much as possible. When Santa saw what I was doing with the garden, he took an interest.”

What started as a simple request for help with watering the plants soon grew into a family friendship. Over the summer, Gurung invited Ayers to come see his own family’s garden and shared their fresh produce with her. Since then, both Gurung and his four children — all Licking Heights students — have helped maintain the Everest garden.

“When I came back from vacation, the garden was weeded and looked great. Santa and his family had planted a bunch more tomatoes for me that they’d grown from seed,” Ayers says. “They also planted some potatoes and more peppers. Every time they took care of the garden when I was on vacation, they’d send me photos.”

Fellow Everest Elementary custodian, Devi Adhikari, also got involved with the garden this summer. Adhikari added to the crops by planting okra and pumpkins for students to harvest.

Ayers notes that the garden is a way for Nepali students to feel more connected to the Licking Heights community and see their culture celebrated at school.

“Nepali people have a proud tradition of gardening, and the best gardeners I have in my class are the Nepali girls,” Ayers says. “My Hispanic students love that we’re making salsa, too.”

The garden is also a tool for social-emotional learning. Ayers teaches her students the importance of teamwork, since everyone works together to care for the plants, and legacy, since each class is preparing a harvest for the next year’s class.

This year, she plans to work with her English language arts teacher partner to incorporate ELA into the garden as well. Students will write letters to the next class about their experiences taking care of the garden and provide advice.

“I just appreciate Santa and his family so much. I am really looking forward to harvesting this year’s garden and I know it will be my best garden yet,” Ayers says. “It will be a wonderful learning experience for my two fourth grade science classes this fall.”

Information submitted by Licking Heights Local Schools.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Nepali employee shares gardening talents for Licking Heights student project