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Roots and Shoots
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Roots and Shoots, an Intergenerational Garden

Roots and Shoots was established in 1985 and its garden has become a model for how schoolchildren and seniors can work together to make a garden grow.
Every week, third graders from Walter Hays Elementary School walk to the garden, where they are met by their senior volunteer mentors. Together, the children and volunteers spend almost an hour and a half together planting, nurturing, and harvesting a garden full of edibles and colorful flowers. Children and their mentors plant, weed, water, and harvest for their own snacks and the local food banks.
   
Each session in the garden includes a lesson about plants, their cycles and the other critters found in a garden. The students work on a related project and then spend time working in the garden.
 
   
  One group prepares a snack, mostly of produce from the garden. As the children eat their snacks, they share things they experienced or found in the garden. In the process, both students and volunteers develop lasting friendships.