Rockford — A year or so ago, there wasn’t much going on in the greenhouse adjoining Rockford High School. Devoid of flora and greenery, the space was mostly used for storage.
Now, by comparison, it’s almost unrecognizable. It’s lush, it’s green — it’s downright verdant. And that’s all thanks to green-thumbed senior Isabella Herrema.
During her junior year, Isabella undertook a National Honor Society project to spiff up the greenhouse, which was original to the 1992 high school building but never really used for its intended purpose.
The greenhouse went through a previous revitalization effort in late 2019, but that project was stymied by the COVID-19 pandemic and the retirement of teacher Paul Murphy, who was the steward of the space.
Isabella — a gardening enthusiast and co-president of the high school’s environmentally focused Green Team — saw the state of the greenhouse and decided to do something about it.
“I saw at the end of my sophomore year how barren this was,” she said. “I just wanted to have it be … somewhere for students to just be around plants and stuff, especially in the bleakness of winter.”
So for NHS, she coordinated a cleaning day, recruiting fellow students to come tidy up the greenhouse. And, as Isabella said, “It just kind of sprouted from there.”
“People came in here and we planted some herbs and just kind of spruced up the place. … And since then I’ve been just trying to get more students involved,” she said.
Isabella kept at it throughout her junior year, spending more than 100 hours working on the greenhouse, and even earning a grant from the Rockford Education Foundation to purchase supplies.
This year, she got some help when former Rockford preschool teacher Lynn Begin — a master gardener herself — started volunteering in the greenhouse.
Begin used the space to store her own plants during the winter, back when Murphy oversaw it. When she came to pick up her plants in the spring of last year, she noticed, as Isabella did, that it was in need of a bit of love.
So she spoke to the administration about what she could do.
“I was like, ‘I’ll come in and water,’ and that kind of snowballed into, ‘Would you be willing to have some flex-hour students come in and help?’ and I’m like, ‘yes!’” Begin said.
There’s been a surge of student interest in helping Isabella and Begin out, and now the pair is working with groups of seven students twice a week during flex-time hours. They’re watering, pruning, planting, dealing with pests, and handling anything else that comes up.
‘It’s just a nice place to hang out and relax. And it’s calming.’
— sophomore Christian Reintges
Students Lend a Hand
Isabella said she’s overjoyed about how popular the greenhouse has become. When she started out, she said, there were students who didn’t even know RHS had such a space. Now it’s attracting attention from all corners of the school.
The student helpers are getting a lot out of it, too.
The greenhouse is just behind the woodshop, and when sophomore Christian Reintges was in shop class, he caught glimpses of Isabella and Begin at work.
“It just looked really interesting — to help the plants and look around, because you don’t see as many plants or foliage around the high school as much,” Christian said. “It’s just a nice place to hang out and relax. And it’s calming.”
Tenth-grader Summer Leech also comes by to help out when she can.
“I love plants and I think it’s a really good opportunity,” Summer said. “A lot of our area’s covered in sports things, and not a ton of greenery. It’s also a good mental-health thing for all the students to have a very green area. It adds a lot, and there’s a little community with the people who come to do it.”
She added that stopping by the greenhouse also makes for a nice break in the school day.
That tracks with the feedback Begin’s received.
“I have heard it said that (students) like coming here because it’s relaxing,” Begin said. “Everybody’s just kind of doing their thing for the benefit of the plants.”
So what’s next for the greenhouse?
Begin said she’d like to see more students make use of the space, and Isabella thinks there’s potential for cross-collaboration with other classes.
“I really want to get the foods class involved,” Isabella said. “We have a Culinary Experiences class here, and I thought it would be really cool if we grew food for that class in here.”
They’ve already started growing some tomatoes and potatoes.
Isabella will head to Michigan State University to study botany and horticulture next year, but, with all the renewed interest, she’s confident she’ll leave the greenhouse in good hands.
“There’s even students, juniors, who want to take over the project and just student-lead the greenhouse and keep it going,” she said. “And that’s the whole point of the NHS project — to leave something behind.”
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