Entities partner on anti-graffiti, community garden project

(Staff photo by Jacob Lopez) Local entities are partnering in an anti-graffiti and community garden project that will target the beautification of local parks, including the Heavin Memorial Park and Resaca Trail.

(Staff photo by Jacob Lopez)
Local entities are partnering in an anti-graffiti and community garden project that will target the beautification of local parks, including the Heavin Memorial Park and Resaca Trail.

By JACOB LOPEZ
Staff Writer
reporter@sbnewspaper.com

During a San Benito CISD Board of Trustees meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 9, district officials discussed the approval of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for an anti-graffiti and community garden project.

The MoU is an agreement between two or more parties in which they work in conjunction on a common goal or action. In this case, the agreement is between the school district, the City of San Benito and the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Office.

Students at the SBCISD Positive Redirection Center (PRC) and teens incarcerated at Amador R. Rodriguez Juvenile Detention Center will be planting the gardens. The city is providing the land (along the Heavin Memorial Park and Resaca Trail and a lot on the corner of Oscar Williams Road and Comfort Drive) while AgriLife, which selected the locations, will provide materials.

According to Rolando Guerra, principal at PRC, an educational aspect will also benefit participating students. Guerra said they’ll be exposed to biology as well as the various aspects of planting and maintaining their gardens. The vegetables grown will then become available to the community. Furthermore, the students will be painting over graffiti.

This, along with the planting of gardens, is also designed to give the students a sense of ownership and responsibility to their community. Lisa Gonzales, site coordinator for the SBCISD Afterschool Program at the PRC, is spearheading the project.

Gonzales said that it will become a community garden, “and our students will be maintaining and cultivating the garden.”

Terri Padilla, site coordinator at Amador Rodriguez Juvenile Detention Center, also feels that the gardens will help promote health and fitness thanks to their locations along the trail.

Gonzales described it as a “mobile classroom,” saying that the students will document their findings.

The PRC and the detention center already selected a handful of students that will participate in the activities.

Also part of the program is a graffiti removal project. Kids will paint over vandalized buildings in an effort to clean up these parts of San Benito.

“We’re going to target areas that have an immense amount of graffiti,” Gonzales said.

Pending board approval, the first project is set for Saturday, Sept. 13 at Falligant Park in San Benito.

Afterward, the kids will do the same for local businesses and other buildings on the second Saturday of every month.

Gonzales and Padilla stressed that there are more ideas in the works between themselves and Guerra.

 

Permanent link to this article: https://www.sbnewspaper.com/2014/09/09/entities-partner-on-anti-graffiti-community-garden-project/

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