(WEST LINN) — While reveling in the impressiveness of Trillium Creek Primary, one of the first things Charity Hudnut noticed when she first visited the school after moving to West Linn with her family in 2012 was its garden beds.
After her daughter had been at Trillium Creek for a year, Hudnut noticed nothing was being done with the garden beds. So, with her daughter heading into second grade, Hudnut and another mom got permission from the school’s principal to plant some starters in the unused beds.
Her daughter’s class came out to see what was growing in the garden.
“It exploded from there. All the classrooms wanted to see what we were doing in the garden, so this other mom and I started to build a garden program for the school,” Hudnut recalled.
Hudnut spoke with teachers from each grade level to learn how to incorporate garden lessons into each class’s curriculum.
“Kindergartners, they study pumpkins in the fall, so we planted pumpkins in the spring, so they'd have pumpkins in the fall,” she said.
They also planted pollinator plants for the second graders, who had a unit on butterflies and third graders, who studied bees.
Hudnut also became known as the smoothie mom, making kale smoothies for every student with kale grown in the garden.
“We wanted to teach them (that) green isn’t gross,” she said of the smoothies, which she would make 500 of in one day.
About five years into running the Trillium Creek garden, Hudnut realized that she and the other garden moms could use some help. As a mom with a full-time job, she was putting in many extra hours working on the garden.
They found the Eco-School Network, a collective of parents from across the Portland metro area who promote sustainable practices in their kids’ schools. They joined the Eco-School Network and, with the help of that organization, got Trillium Creek recognized as an official green school.
The Eco-School Network also helped with other sustainable initiatives at the school, such as collecting and recycling plastic and batteries, organizing a book swap and reducing food waste.
“We were weighing the food and seeing a lot of food being thrown away,” Hudnut said. “So the volunteers and I would go and help the kids — especially kindergarteners — to understand, ‘Don't throw away your snacks. They're still wrapped up. You can take this home with you.’”
She also recalled how the audit of cafeteria food waste helped school officials find a new vendor for cafeteria pizza after they learned that kids were throwing away most of their pizza.
After leading the Trillium Creek garden program for eight years, Hudnut phased out of that role when both her daughters left the school. She helped train other parents and is still involved with the Eco School Network today.
Hudnut is also involved in the community at the city level, where she serves on the Arts and Culture Commission.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Hudnut sought ways to serve the city and joined the Sustainability Advisory Board and Arts and Culture Commission. After being asked to serve as co-chair of the Arts and Culture Commission, she did not reapply for the Sustainability Advisory Board role since the arts commission needed more help.
Over the past four years, Hudnut said she’s enjoyed leading the arts commission, noting that the city hosted its first-ever art show two years ago, and the commission is preparing to host its third in October.
“We have a lot of cool art in our city, and a lot of people even know about it,” she said. “There's a lot in the library I didn't even know existed. There's art down at Fields Bridge (Park) and the Youth Music Project, So we started making an archive of all the art in the city.”
The commission created bookmarks with a QR code that will lead to a map of all the art in the city.
So, what drives her to be involved with the community in so many ways?
While she joked that she is true to her name, Charity, she noted more seriously that she thinks about the impact she wants to make on the world.
“I want to leave something to be proud of,” she said.
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