Kids' Garden Opens at New City Library

The Garden Rockers’ Club of the New City Library officially opened the library’s new garden on Sunday afternoon. The club, which is made up of 16 local students in grades 2-4, has spent the last several months cleaning up the area outside the children’s library and turning it into a community garden.

The ceremony featured the members of the Garden Rockers singing and telling nature jokes to the crowd before receiving certificates honoring them for the work they did. The children then held up a ribbon while Library Director Chuck McMorran cut it to officially open the garden.

The Garden Rockers’ Club was started by two children’s librarians: Kapila Love and Sarah Northshield with this project specifically in mind for the members to complete. Love had actually been thinking about this project ever since she came to the library around six years ago.

“We have this beautiful space; it’s such a unique space in Rockland County,” Love said. “It’s an enclosed space; it’s safe for children to come and find. It’s a shame that it wasn’t being used, so we thought, ‘We’ve got to remedy this situation.”’

She stated that the previous library director had not been very open to the idea, but when McMorran became the new director three years ago he was willing to support the project.

“It’s such a beautiful space that was so unused,” McMorran said about the garden. “Kapila has been talking to me for a while about doing some things with gardening and it turned out well. It’s beautiful, and today was just a wonderful event.”

While this garden was the first real project for the Garden Rockers’ Club, Love added after the ceremony that she might look for a more ambitious project for the children to work on next year, like perhaps starting a community garden.

The children have met at the library at least once a week since late February to create the garden. The kids themselves did some weeding and planting and then decorated the garden with flowers made out of toilet-paper tubes along with small paper versions of themselves. The children also put rocks with googly eyes outside the library window that faces the garden.

The garden contains a windmill, a fountain, various garden gnomes, and stones decorated by the children. Some of the stones have colored gems on them and others have words like “smile,” “calm,” and “look."

“The opening showed children the appreciation of gardening,” said Mary O’Donnell of New City, a parent of a Garden Rockers member. “The people that work here had patience with them, and they taught them how to express themselves and how to play in a very positive matter.”

O’Donnell also noted that her 8-year-old son Neil Hickey now wants to help out with the garden outside his house as well.

“[I like] getting my hands dirty,” Hickey said.

Another parent, Carol Berkman of New City, also has a garden at home. But while she would never be able to use it to teach her nine-year-old daughter Chana about planting and weeding, she appreciates that this program is able to do just that.

“We’re totally incompetent [with our garden], and this is a great chance to expose her to gardening, something she would never learn at home,” Carol Berkman said. “The earth, it’s beautiful, it’s such an important part of living and being connected. And also it’s a part of the library. Everything the library does is wonderful.”

Members of the Clarkstown Gardening Club helped out by teaching the children how to weed and plant and also doing some of the dirty work themselves. Local businesses ,including Nanuet Home Depot and Van Houten Gardens in New City, donated supplies, decorations, and plants for the garden. Representatives from these organizations received small flowers from the Garden Rockers during the ceremony to thank them for all their hard work.

And as Love pointed out during the ceremony, this work created an area that library visitors of all ages can enjoy.

“It’s no coincidence that in the classical Hindu tradition there’s a whole stage of life where you’re expected to go and meditate in the forest, and it’s no coincidence that the Bible almost begins in a garden. This garden, and all gardens and nature, inspires us, illuminates us, and enlightens us.”