Students Transform Janitor's Closet Into Greenhouse

Five seniors at took what for years had been used as a janitor’s closet and restored it to its former glory--as a greenhouse.

As morning light flooded the second-floor greenhouse on Jan. 10, the Kennedy Beautification Group, as they call themselves, prepared to unveil a semester of hard work to the admiration of teachers and their fellow students.

After weeks of scrubbing windows and watering plants, the students had finally completed their senior capstone project for the Leadership Training Institute, a four-year program at Kennedy High School that has for nearly two decades trained student leaders through experience-based learning.

Over the fall semester, the Kennedy Beautification Group planted flowers and vegetables: tulips, peas, broccoli, Swiss chard--and a SpongeBob SquarePants Chia Pet. Various teachers donated seeds and dirt--and even donated some plants.

Senior Aimy Avila pointed to one of the plants from Brookside Gardens, a begonia. “This one was completely dead over winter break,” she said. But as the students kept watering it and watering it some more, the plant miraculously recovered. “Our motto now is, just keep watering,” she said.

The idea for the project took root when Avila came to the school over the summer with another student to scope out the greenhouse and begin plans for renovation. “It was really nasty in here,” she said.

“It wasn’t intended to be a project at first,” said Thais Pereira, another member of the group. “We just really wanted it to look nice.”

Principal Eric Minus said that the greenhouse had been very vibrant in the late 90’s, but when the horticultural program turned over, it fell into disrepair. He’s happy to see it restored. “I’m very proud of them,” he said. “They’ve done an exceptional job.”

The Kennedy Beautification Group’s members--Meredith Guenther, Aimy Avila, Thais Pereira, Erin O'Keeffe and Dolma Dawa--are all seniors in the Leadership Training Institute, the only program of its kind in Montgomery County. This year the school accepted 22 students out of 47 eighth-grade applicants, according to program coordinator Yolanda Rious.

Rious said that LTI students have collectively raised $10,000 for seven different charitable organizations, ranging from AIDS research to food recycling.

The capstone projects demonstrate what students have learned about leadership, explained Rious. She said the students manage their own conflicts and figure out how to work together. One group obtained tricycles for a special needs program; another group gathered untouched, unused food at the high school and delivered it to homeless shelters.

And then there’s the greenhouse. “It was quite an eyesore,” Rious said. “No one paid it any attention.”

That has certainly changed, but not without hard work--all done by the students themselves. To cover expenses, they held four fundraisers. (To the girls’ surprise, soil was their biggest cost.)

Every day, the plants must be watered. And as the students have cared for the greenhouse, they say they’ve learned more about horticulture. One day, they came across what looked like aphids but turned out to be predator wasps, which are apparently good for a garden.

The greenhouse has the potential to be a repeating senior project. Now that the Kennedy Beautification Group has gotten it off the ground, they hope that students who come after them will see the value in maintaining it. In fact, the group is starting a club so that even as they redirect their attention toward spring internships and preparing to graduate, they will know the greenhouse is in good hands.

Senior Meredith Guenther said she saw the greenhouse as a way to lift school spirit, to show students that “we don’t fill rooms with janitorial supplies if we can fill them with beauty.”