Garden Tour brings in $12,500 for charities
<p>Andrea Naccarato, from Hayden Meadows Elementary School, hugs the Garden Club President Tina Hood after receiving her check to fund the greenhouse at Hayden Meadows.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - The Shared Harvest Community Garden has recently been touched by frost, visited by hungry deer and is starting to show its autumnal oranges and browns, but in the waning days of summer, it continues to serve several purposes.
Proceeds from the Coeur d'Alene Garden Club's 2014 Garden Tour were distributed to local charities and organizations in the garden Friday afternoon. Shared Harvest was chosen as the Commercial Commendation of this year's Garden Tour, which took place in July.
"I want to thank the Coeur d'Alene Garden Club for honoring the garden this year," said Shared Harvest founder and manager Kim Normand. "Of course, you're seeing it at the end of the season, but this is a magical place."
Eleven community players received a check for a portion of the $12,500 brought in by the tour. Among the recipients were: North Idaho College's dual-enrollment scholarship fund, Animal Allies of Idaho, Second Chance Pet Rescue, North Idaho Violence Prevention Center, ElderHelp, ICare, Court Appointed Special Advocates for children (CASA), Shared Harvest and the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
"With great pleasure, each year we do support all of you and the community as well. So, you are here by divine appointment," Garden Tour chair Bonnie Warwick said to a laughing crowd. "For all the special work you do, we thank you for that and we honor you with our checks."
Hayden Meadows Elementary assistant principal Andrea Naccarato of Coeur d'Alene accepted funds on behalf of her school. Hayden Meadows has received funds from the Garden Tour for several years. The school will use the funds to supplement its greenhouse program, which involves students from kindergarten through fifth grade. Naccarato said it's a great experience for first-graders to plant seeds and watch them grow.
"It's so fun to watch their faces as they go out and see the ladybugs that are flying around the greenhouse and to see that their work has produced something that is beautiful," she said. "Our fifth-graders will go out and measure the plants, inspect the soil, determine how things grow. Each grade level is out there looking at different elements of the greenhouse. We can tie it into the academic piece, as well."