By Ryan O'Connor
Staff Writer
The Dunbarton Garden
Club, in collaboration with
Dunbarton Elementary
School, did some digging last
week so the school could be
more colorful in the spring.
On Thursday, Oct. 19,
Donna Dunn, Nancy Rizza
and Lara Routhie brought
their club’s “Daffodils for
Dunbarton” campaign to local
kindergartners and taught the
children how to plant bulbs
in their home gardens.
To demonstrate this, the
club and kindergartners
planted “baby” daffodil bulbs
in the PTO garden in front
of Dunbarton Elementary
School.
Kindergarten teacher Kim
Belanger said planting bulbs
fit right into the school’s curriculum,
which teaches children
about life cycles.
“I think it makes a wonderful
connection between the
community and the school,”
said Belanger “It’s very appropriate
that we have a garden
that was designed through an
artist-in-residence program
several years ago.
“The children feel ownership
to this garden and it decorates
and beautifies not only
the school’s property, but the
garden for the townspeople
as they drive by as well.”
Dunn said the garden club
specifically saved the tiny
baby bulbs from this season’s
offerings and nicknamed the
John Stark bulbs “John Jrs,”
the Molly Stark bulb’s “Mini-Mollys,” while the Burnham
Beauty bulbs were called
“Baby Burnhams.”
The garden club recently
re-energized its original 1935
objective, said Dunn.
“Some of us had never
even seen it, but part of the
objective was to work with
the kids in the school. So,
it’s appropriate that we get
together with the school once
or twice a year to work on a
small project,” she said.
Routhier, who Dunn
described as an enthusiastic
new member to the garden
club, has a son in the
morning kindergarten class and also brought her younger
son along.
“They loved it,” Routhier
said. “They’re boys, so they dig
dirt.”
“It’s appropriate that we
planted the baby bulbs and the
kindergartners are the youngest
in the school,” said Routhier.
Belanger said the planting
gave her students a feeling of
doing something meaningful.
“They were really excited,
not only to be part of something
with the garden club, but also
because they know that even
though they are the youngest
ones here, they are still part of
the school community,” she said.
“That’s really exciting to a 5- or
6-year-old child.”
As a special surprise, each
child received a gift-wrapped
package containing a larger bulb
to bring home to plant with their
parents.