A few days ago I was talking with a long-time friend about this being the Seed’s 50th year. He asked how the school has changed since the first year we started. I said that the Seed has expanded in many ways, a larger staff, bigger playground, more financial resources, and broader community, but for the most part, our mission and approach to teaching our young students is the same. What I meant by my response is that the heart of the Seed remains true to our original intention.
Planetary stewardship is a key aspect of the Seed’s heart mission. We taught our original Seeds, a tiny group of nine students, ages six months five, to be kind to the Earth. They learned about recycling, not polluting air and water, protecting creatures of the land, earth and sky, and planting gardens. Those early threads of planetary stewardship are still alive and well at Awakening Seed. Technology has certainly opened access to many kinds of information. For example, facts about sea mammals in the early days of the Seed were mostly only available through books. These days children experience life in the ocean through videos that take them deep into the ocean, as if they were swimming alongside marine creatures. During a study of ocean plastic, children were able to understand the clean-up process more clearly by watching videos of boats with special collection nets placed at the mouth of specific rivers.
In the early days we talked about and practiced recycling. We collected cans, bottles, and newspapers, which we physically delivered to the recycling center. We made our own compost by burying food scraps in the ground by our garden. Now the Seed has a service that picks up compost and soft plastics weekly. We subscribe to a monthly service that provides collection bags for multi-layer plastics that, until recently, would end up in the trash. We continue to encourage families and students to bring their personal plastics from home as part of the program.
Gardening has been a steady thread in our Seed journey as planetary stewards. In the first few years when the school was in our home, our backyard garden doubled as the school garden. As Awakening Seed grew, we had to be creative about where and how we gardened, since many years we occupied shared spaces with other organizations. The gardening program really took off once we moved to our current location. Now each class has their own garden where all kinds of things grow, including carrots, peas, flowers, kale, radishes, onions, and other green foods. Our gardening program has been greatly enhanced by annual community seed grants from the Native Seeds/SEARCH, a seed bank in Tucson.
In addition to the seed donation program, our gardens have flourished in large part by the formation of the Seed Garden Club. Started by a few parents four years ago, Garden Club has provided raised beds, added sprinkler systems, weeded outdoor areas, cleaned up clutter, and prepped beds for the new year. Prepping the soil is one of the most important ways Garden Club gives teachers a boost. On Saturday, September 19 from 8-11am, Garden Club will step into action to set up the 2026-2027 gardens. We invite all parents who want to help out to join us. No gardening experience is necessary. Please bring gloves, a hat, water, and your enthusiasm to help out the Seed. We ask that children not attend this session, for liability reasons. Thanks to everyone who donated bedding soil, and we hope we’ll see you on Saturday. It’s another way we show up as planetary stewards.