We have officially ended our summer session here in Cambridge and what a summer it has been! We were lucky enough to have 12 wonderful students from the Cambridge area working with us for the six weeks of the program. During this time we were able to complete different jobs in our local community, learn about the importance of native plants, have a super successful plant sale (thank you everyone who came to support!) and play enough “Go Fern” (our native plant version of Go Fish) to last a lifetime! Below is a compilation of some of our favorite moments from the summer.
We started the summer off strong by rehabilitating three planter boxes that we started working on last year at Jerry’s Pond. On the right you can see the before and after photos of one planter that prove how much work our students put in to this project!
A few other jobs that we did this summer include; planting 50 ferns for the city; pulling out 5ft weeds from in front of the First Baptist Church in Central Square; and removing hundreds of Black Swallow-wort pods from the area around Fresh Pond!
Aside from these work projects, we also were lucky enough to go on some fun field trips! We started off the summer by visiting City Hall and talking with [Insert name of rep] about his work on climate readiness. We also visited Mt. Auburn Cemetery, the Museum of Fine Arts, and we got to release monarchs at both Fresh Pond and the Fenway Victory Gardens.
Additionally, in between our projects and curriculum on business management, climate change, eco-heroes, native plants, etc. we had some great guests come chat with us– Steve Nutter came and talked about his role with Green Cambridge and Jane Hirschi talked about her organization CitySprouts.
The summer came to a close when we held our native plant sale on August 7th right by our flourishing demo garden at Reservoir Church. We were able to educate customers about the importance of native plants and direct them to plants that would be ideal for their yard. This sale ended up being the most successful sale YEEP has ever had (until the Belmont sale beat our record just 1 week later)! This sale allowed our students to share their knowledge and understand how many people care about pollinators and native plants in this community. [Insert pic of sale]
Although the sale was definitely a highlight, one of our favorite memories from the whole summer was when one of our students sang our “Pollinator in a Pickle” rap at the MSYEP Summer Showcase and the whole crowd loved it! Check out our student run instagram @yeep_ma for a video of the performance and other photos from the summer! As always, we want to thank everyone who contributed to making this summer so successful and rewarding for us and the students. We’ll see you next summer, YEEP!
