By Chris Frost
Eagle Times News Editor
CLAREMONT, N.H. — Girl Scout Troop 30261 held a special ribbon cutting Monday and debuted its Accessible Garden Bed.
The raised bed is the first at Claremont’s Community Garden and gives community members in wheelchairs the opportunity to participate in gardening.
Girl Scout Natalya Ash is proud to be part of the project and loved working on the garden bed.
“This is the Silver Award Project for the Cadets,” she said. “The Silver Award is the highest award a cadet can earn, and we did it because the cost of food is going up.”
Cadets earn the Silver Award by identifying a project that makes a lasting community change, planning and developing said project, and celebrating.
Cadet Aubreigh Pfeiffer, a seventh grader at Claremont Middle School, thanked the crowd for celebrating the completed Operation Adaptive Gardening Project.
“We are the Girl Scout Troop 30261 cadets,” she said.
Saphira Cox recently finished eighth grade at Unity Elementary School and said the Silver Award is prestigious and prepares cadets to achieve goals throughout life.
“It will benefit our future, and we’ll have better jobs and career opportunities, college scholarships, and even a higher military rank,” she said. “Part of our Girl Scout Silver journey is to build a team and find a project advisor.”
She said they spent a minimum of 50 hours on the project and presented it to the Green and White Mountains Council.
Ash said the team applied for a Community Savings Bank Grant for the project and was awarded funds.
“With Mr. Lambert, we built four of these accessible garden beds with this grant,” Ash said thanking those who helped.
Troop 30261 Leader Tara Tilton is “super proud” of her Cadets who make the world a better place.
“Parks & Rec Director Nick Lawrence is the one we presented the project to, and they accepted the donation from the girls during their project,” Tilton said. “Since Girl Scouts began, they have strong values of building Girls of courage, confidence, and character. We strive to make the Girls leaders themselves.”
Molding Strong Girls means the world to Tilton.
“They’re part of my family,” she said.
Tilton hopes community members join in and plant what they want to grow in the garden.
Jen Nelson said cherry tomatoes grow well in raised-bed gardens, plus cucumber, squash, and radishes grow well in the area too.
“I love growing radishes because they only take about 25 days, then you can pick them and eat them,” she said. ‘Then, we can have some nice flowers like calendulas and marigolds.”
Claremont MakerSpace Volunteer John Lambert encourages creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship at his shop and gave the Scouts a workplace when they ran out of room.
“I have a place off Maple Avenue with a large outbuilding, and we moved everything there,” he said. “These are hard-working girls. I did the sawing, the dangerous part, but they did everything else and did a great job.”
Lawrence loves the “amazing” project and how they put it together.
“This asset is tremendous for the garden, and I can’t thank the Girl Scouts enough,” he said.
People who want to grow items in the Community Garden should contact Lawrence or Community Center Leader Jamie DeRosa.
“All you have to do is contact us, and we get this going early every spring,” Lawrence said. “Our deadline is in March, and we hit the ground running. Contact the Community Center and we can download it to you or come by and pick one up.”
Councilor James Contois said the accessible garden is an incredible opportunity for the city.
“The Girl Scouts did this project and are also doing a kiosk project for the parks,” he said. “Girl Scout Leader Tara Tilton is incredible. She’s leading these girls, and they’re doing incredible things.”
For more information, call the Girl Scouts of the Green and White Mountains at 888-474-9686.
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