The print version of this story omitted the donation of $4,000 from Home Depot to the garden project. It has been corrected here.
Above, a presentation Reed Rambough created to showcase his project and the steps that were taken.
KINGSTON — To say Reed Rambough spent days planning and toiling over the Wolfle Elementary School garden is an understatement.
The 15-year-old Kingston resident also got a lesson in grant writing, searching to fund the project he hopes will lead to his Eagle Scout rank. The member of Troop 1555 said he “spent days writing grants.”
It was exhausting, but worth it.
“Wolfle for me was a really great time and I met some really great friends … I really wanted to come back here and help out,” Reed said.
On June 11, Reed’s work came together in the form of hours of work at Wolfle as he, his parents and volunteers from the school district and community worked to enhance the school garden. Reed worked on the garden beforehand as he measured and dug the ground, but the garden came together in less than six hours. Much faster than he had expected.
“I was worried about not having enough volunteers,” Reed said, adding that workers from Home Depot and the U.S. Coast Guard also came out to help. “We had a lot of people show up.”
In all, Reed was able to accumulate more than $6,000 in funding for the project. Along with individual donors and the Wolfle PTA, A&L Topsoil in Poulsbo donated most of the gravel, the Poulsbo Garden Club donated $200 and the Kingston Garden Club donated $1,150 and Home Depot donated $4,000.
The donation from the Kingston Garden Club came at “the last minute,” Reed said. Up until that point, he had just enough to “scrape by”; after the donation, the possibilities opened up.
Included in the project was a new sandbox, benches, trellises, edging a garden berm with a 1-foot-high wall block, gravel paths — which have student-decorated rocks set in them from when Reed was in school — and overall landscape work.
The idea for the project originated from Reed’s request to work on a trail behind the school. Because the trail is used a few times per year, Reed said Wolfle principal Ben Degnin suggested the garden.
The garden was originally built in 2007. Work parties have continued to try and maintain it, said first-grade teacher Maria Steinbeisser. With everyone’s busy schedules, it was difficult to upkeep, she said.
Steinbeisser and Degnin both gave Reed ideas for the garden and what they would like to see improved. When it was finished, Steinbeisser said the Wolfle students were beyond excited.
“They were delighted,” she said. “The first morning they saw it it was like they were unwrapping a Christmas present.”
Once the garden begins producing food, Steinbeisser said the plan is to donate everything to ShareNet Food Bank in Kingston.
