Groups of youth from Huntington gather regularly at the Barnett Center’s Community Learning Garden. It’s here that they learn about gardening and have formed a group called the Junior Master Gardener Huntington Urban Gardeners. The group is led by Melissa Stewart, Extension Agent for Agriculture & Natural Resources at West Virginia State University Extension Service; Jennifer Williams, Coordinator of the Huntington Community Gardens Program; and Eve Marcum Atkinson, Assistant Coordinator for the Huntington Community Gardens.

The Huntington Junior Master Gardener (JMG) group has 15-20 youth from the local community participating. The Huntington program targets interaction with kids from the surrounding low-income housing developments. Huntington Urban Gardeners has evolved into an opportunity for all the kids in the area to come and participate in free, day-long events in order to best address the needs of the community. Rather than weekly interactions with the at-risk youth, the Urban Gardeners have developed day camp scenarios hosted at the Barnett Center on days when kids are out of school for Teacher In-Service Days. This provides a safe and healthy environment for the kids to gather while providing hours of hands-on activities to increase their knowledge of horticultural topics.

The Huntington JMG Urban Gardeners recently received national recognition being named the National JMG Group of the Month for January 2010. The award came from the national Junior Master Gardener headquarters because of the groups many exciting programs they have developed and the inventive ways the Urban Gardeners are taking gardening out into the community.

The youth have participated in a two-day Literature in the Garden camp, where kids became certified in the Literature in the Garden program.  The camp focused on two books from the Literature in the Garden series and was comprised of a full day of hands-on activities, reinforcing the stories and bringing each one to life.  

A second camp, called Art in the Garden, helped 15 youth from the community put their art skills to work creating stepping stones, pine cone birdfeeders and other garden treasures based on the four seasons.

The programs receive overwhelming community support. Through cooperation with the Huntington Community Garden program, the youth will be able to expand their gardening efforts and use them outside of the Barnett Center to beautify the city. The Huntington Urban Gardeners group will be using their talents to develop community gardens at various locations on vacant lots that have been donated to the community garden organization.

A Children’s Cut Flower Garden is the first project to have been created on a lot in particular by residents in an effort to “take back their community.”  Even though the kids will be working to beautify their surrounding city, additional camp events are on the horizon for the gardeners with both Wildlife Gardener and Health & Nutrition in the Garden day camps in the works.

For more information on the Huntington Urban Gardener program or West Virginia’s Junior Master Gardener program, please contact Melissa Stewart at 304.532.1670 or williaml@wvstateu.edu. 

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