ETHAN, S.D. 鈥� FFA students in Ethan have received a $500 grant from the South Dakota FFA Foundation to help start their community service project: creating sensory gardens and wheelchair accessible raised garden beds for people with disabilities in their community.
Ethan FFA Chapter Historian Amira Jerke is passionate about helping people with disabilities. Her mom works for LifeQuest, the community organization the chapter is working with on this project. LifeQuest works to provide opportunities for people of all abilities that can enrich their lives including skills training, or just offering meaningful activities of their interest.
ADVERTISEMENT
鈥淢y mom works at the shop where they keep them busy during the day doing all kinds of stuff, fun activities like learning ... and she was talking about how they just didn鈥檛 seem to get outside enough. And that鈥檚 something that everyone needs to do no matter who you are,鈥� Jerke said.
That inspired Jerke to apply for an FFA grant so she and her fellow students could build sensory gardens and accessible garden beds for the residents.
鈥淚 just got to thinking and in my head I could kind of draw it up like it would be so simple to make a garden bed that was wheelchair accessible, and it just hasn鈥檛 been done,鈥� Jerke said.
Not only will the gardens work for those in wheelchairs, but the sensory garden will teach people with a variety of learning disabilities about plants and gardening using all of their senses.
鈥淥ne of the things that we really like seeing is how the people with disabilities interact with the world,鈥� said Brian Loken, Development Director with the LifeQuest Foundation. 鈥淪ome people can鈥檛 speak, some people can鈥檛 move their hands or legs, so this way is using sense of smell, sense of maybe touch for some people, they are able to interact with their world in a new way.鈥�
鈥淚 am a true believer that everybody has the ability to learn, it鈥檚 just the matter of how you teach them to learn,鈥� said Susan Roudabush, Ethan Ag Teacher and FFA Advisor. 鈥淚n my past, I have worked with students with disabilities, and I have found that if you give them something that they can hold, taste, smell, touch, that they remember much better. So that鈥檚 where the idea came from.鈥�
They hope to have the project completed by spring, and the students are excited to be able to start teaching through plants.
ADVERTISEMENT
鈥淭he project is really important to us because we are helping out the community 鈥� because our community is so good to us,鈥� said Drake Gustafson, Ethan FFA Chaplain.
鈥淚鈥檓 just most excited to see the reactions from the individuals. I鈥檝e met a lot of them through the time my mom鈥檚 worked there and I know they are going to be super stoked about it,鈥� Jerke said.
But the work won鈥檛 stop once the gardens are built. Students will spend time helping LifeQuest residents navigate the gardens and keep up with maintenance.
鈥淭hey will be involved with setting it up and planting with the people we support,鈥� Loken said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 an interactive session where people can kind of get together and make a really fun day out of it, or multiple days.鈥�
鈥淚 hope it just shows them that there is more things to do with individuals, they don鈥檛 need to be stuck inside doing the same things, we can keep continuing to add experiences for them,鈥� Jerke said.
Right now, the project is only partially funded through the grant. The FFA chapter will be looking for community support as the project is expected to cost around $1,500.
鈥淲e hope to bring people in the community in to help us with that,鈥� Roudabush said. 鈥淲e are at ground level.鈥�
The Trust Project
