The community garden at Westside Village Magnet School in Bend needs some TLC. Friends of the school are rallying donations and volunteer labor to fix up the garden.
“It needs to be level. We need someone to come in and pull out all the flat rock,” said Patrick Bluhm, K-8 Facilitator at the school
The Westside Village Community Garden is so well loved by students and community members that the pathways are breaking down from 20 years of foot traffic.
The liner in the pond has sprung a leak.
“What we have to do is, step one, pull all the gravel out, inspect the liner,” Bluhm said. “We are trying to get some funding to replace the intake here. The water feature is fabulous. The kids love it.”
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The garden was built by teachers and volunteers more than 20 years ago. It serves double duty as an outdoor classroom for students and a community garden with raised beds, fruit trees, a greenhouse, a wood-fired oven and compost recycling.
Maintenance stopped during the COVID pandemic and now neighbors want to restore the garden beginning with the pathways.
“I’ll pull all these up myself if someone will come out and help me,” said Mandy Weston, volunteer and parent of a student who attends Westside Village Magnet School. “I’ll do as much as I possibly can. I’ve been hauling rocks. Me and a lot of the kids have been moving the rocks.”
Friends of Westside Village Magnet School, a local 501(c)(3) non-profit, is seeking donations and volunteer support to restore the garden. They say they’ll do the work as soon as volunteers and donations materialize.
