Taft Grows Green is more than a garden

YOUNGSTOWN

Taft Grows Green sprouts tomatoes, green beans, blueberries, eggplant and pumpkins and, for one student, a new outlook.

Cortez Arroyo, 11, a fifth-grader at Taft Elementary School, had a hard time behaving in class last year.

“He begged me to work in the garden,” said Laurie McEwan, a Taft teacher and adviser for the school’s 4-H Club. “I told him, ‘Give me one week without problems’” and she would allow him to join Taft Grows Green, the 4-H Club that planted and maintains the garden across the street from the school, McEwan said.

That was last school year, and she hasn’t had problems with him since then.

“It’s been life-changing for him,” McEwan said.

Read more about the school project in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.