Middle school students “surviving and thriving” with help of after school program
In our After School program, the age group that many people think is the hardest to deal with falls within middle school. It’s the age where disrespectful attitudes develop, apathy toward school begins to show, and peer pressure becomes the dominant force in decision making. But even with all these trends around them, our middle school students are showing amazing success by God’s grace.
This year they’re learning how to grow and maintain their own urban garden through a partnership with the non-profit group, EatSouth. Our students have worked hard to get planting beds ready for seeding. They’ve built their own underground irrigation system and recently they harvested their first radish crops in early October.
All of this hard work after school would be great if it stood alone, but these students have been working equally hard in their classrooms at school as well. They collectively hold a 3.13 grade point average in a community where the graduation rate of their older peers is less than 65 percent. In a time where they are expected to lose, the middle school students at Common Ground Montgomery are not just surviving, they are thriving. We couldn’t be more proud of them.
In the coming months, they will take up their second harvest, build new planting beds, and dig additional irrigations systems before the start of the spring season.