By: Hannah Chimal
At Eisenhower High School, there’s a recent club that has just started which is the Gardening Club or better known as “The Bloomin’ Eagles!” The purpose of this club is to bring students together, to learn how to garden, to enjoy being outside and doing things with your hands. The club was started by a sophomore named Reylene Navarro who has now become the president of the club and the advisor of the club is Mrs. Riley! Reylene says that the person who inspired her to start this is her grandma, she says “When I used to live with her, she would be up early in the morning at the crack of dawn, making sure that the birds didn't eat the fruit off her tree or that her Nopales weren’t in bad health. Seeing her dedication is super inspirational and I think that it is super cool that she is able to cook what she grows and it tastes great too.” The club’s main goal is to start getting students involved with understanding how to grow things and how to take care of plants. Mrs. Riley says that she doesn’t only want students to learn about it but to enjoy it as well. She describes gardening as fulfilling to grow something, to enjoy and eat it.
One of the club’s values is the environment which is something that Reylene cares about as she wants to be a Marine Biologist in the future. In addition, Mrs. Riley says this club will be beneficial to students because they will be learning a new skill. She continues to say that she would love it if the club could grow enough fruits and vegetables that the school could have a “Freshmen Feast” in the future. The Gardening Club will be linking with other clubs such as “The Engineering Club” and “EGGS” to build the gardening equipment to plant fruits and vegetables. Along with this, the club will involve the school in little ways such as composting trash! Mrs. Riley says it’s important to follow instructions on where to throw trash because they will use that to compost, all of this trash will cut down on all the waste too.
Mrs. Riley says that anyone is able to join the club. She also says that gardening is an activity that doesn’t take a crazy amount of time. With this, Reylene additionally says that once students get past the “getting dirty” part of gardening, they will see that it is pretty fun. She says that the best advice that she could give about gardening is to be patient, she states “There are gonna be times when your plants don’t grow and when they break or die. It might not seem like a big deal, but when you are growing them, it sucks and it hurts after putting in so much hard work. So, when you are patient and don’t get discouraged, your outcome will be whatever you want it to be.” Currently, the club doesn’t have a set time but there’ll be meetings once a week after school once the garden gets going. If interested in joining the Gardening Club or have any questions overall, please visit Mrs. Riley in room B - 11, both Reylene and Mrs. Riley would love for people to come and try out the club!