On Saturday, April 9, 2016 the rain was coming down, but that did not deter our CommunityGrows staff Jay Jordan, who was on a mission to get volunteers involved in the garden at Cobb Elementary School. Most of the BEETS (Band of Environmentally Educated and Employable Teens) showed up and they were joined by ten hardy volunteers: two from University High School (Lucia Tice and Jan Wignall); 
a CommunityGrows Advisory Board (AB) member, Casey Johnson; a couple AB candidates; a wonderful family with a toddler; and other family and friends.
The activity for the first part of the morning was weeding all the beds on three different levels of the garden.
The BEETS were real troopers, some without rain gear. Yet they did not complain as the rain came drizzling down! What a devoted crew! The second half of the morning we all gathered together to learn about the Three Sisters. 
Jay read from the book Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. “Native people speak of this gardening style as the Three Sisters. There are many stories of how they came to be, but they all share the understanding of these plants as women, sisters. Some stories tell of a long winter when the people were dropping from hunger. Three beautiful women came to their dwellings on a snowy night. One was a tall woman dressed all in yellow, with long flowing hair. The second wore green, and the third was robed in orange. The three came inside to shelter by the fire. Food was scarce but the visiting strangers were fed generously, sharing in the little that the people had left. In gratitude for their generosity, the three sisters revealed their true identities—corn, beans, and squash—and give themselves to the people in a bundle of seeds so that they might never go hungry again.” It was really nice to hear this story as a group of volunteers and then be presented with the seeds of these three sisters. Everyone took a few of these seed in flower pot and went around the garden planting the three seeds close together as a group. 
In the fall, we will reap a bountiful harvest.
For more photos, see our Flickr Photostream here.