One thing leads to another — and sometimes the results are their own brand of magic.
Earlier this year while coordinating the virtual discussion of “Braiding Sweetgrass” for the Louisiana Inspired Book Club, my goal was to assemble a Louisiana-based group of people who could help guide readers through the book’s brilliant stories about indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teaching of plants.
That’s how I met Kylie Altier, Louisiana’s 2024 Teacher of the Year. She hesitantly joined the panel, questioning what she could add to the mix. I’ve since gotten to know her a bit better and am inspired by her incredible combination of grant-writing knowhow, devotion to children, personal curiosity and garden smarts. Without question, she is a gift to the children at McKinley Elementary School in Baton Rouge.
A few weeks ago, Altier invited members of the community to a garden party at the school on a Friday morning. I went with no idea what to expect and walked into a beautiful school, full of smiling faces, decked out and ready to welcome outsiders to their big garden event.
Walking into the garden, that was financed by a grant Altier wrote and led a group of volunteers to build, was like entering a place where something special is clearly going on.
Altier, community volunteers largely from University United Methodist Church, and many other teachers, staff and administrators had done an incredible job preparing the garden, school and students for the day.
Not only was the space dotted with plants, including flowers, herbs, berries and more, there were composting and other stations where students were demonstrating a variety of plant/nature concepts or selling flowers and herbs they had grown, cards they made or plant-themed keychains.
Altier was also at the garden party, but she wasn’t taking a moment to take it all in — some of the kids were reciting speeches about how berries or basil grow. A fifth grader explained to me that basil was a great source of vitamin K. Another student explained in scientific detail the process of composting. Volunteers strolled around the garden on the beautiful morning admiring the scene. It was a thing of beauty.
Meanwhile Altier was at the edge of the garden making berry pancakes over a hotplate for a line of first graders — she was in what seemed to be perpetual motion.
Toward the end of my visit, I stopped by the germination station. Students explained to me how seeds germinate, using cups of beans, cotton balls and a saucer of water.
The fifth graders showed me how to pull the cotton so that I created a little nest, then wet the cotton before placing one of the beans inside it. From there, at the students’ instruction, I put several of the cotton-covered beans into a snack-size baggie, which I dropped into my purse.
It was not the only souvenir I left with. Students were selling plants they grew and cards they drew and painted, but my favorite purchase was a keychain.
Students had decorated many of the wooden keychains with a variety of plant-themed drawings. Most were flowers, but I am always drawn to words and picked up one to read what a child had written beside a small drawing.
In a young student’s handwriting, it read: “sun + water + soil =” and then the student drew a flower. On the back of the keychain, the student wrote, “I love plant.”
I too love plant.
I left the McKinley garden party with my hands, pockets and heart full. I had plants, seeds, cards and keychains the students made and sold, but more than that I left with hope.
I forgot all about the seeds in soggy cotton balls in the baggie in my purse until nearly two weeks passed. Much to my surprise, despite a lack of fresh air, light or additional water, all the beans but one had sprouted.
Life finds a way.
The germination surprise reminded me of the flowers that bloom in sidewalk cracks as opposed to the ones I nurture, perhaps overly so, in the pots near my front door.
I wondered if it’s possible to nurture too much? Perhaps it is. Maybe things that have to work harder turn out to flourish more in the long run? There’s a fine line.
But back to Altier, she’s not sitting still.
In late April, I learned she received another grant — this one from the Academic Distinction Fund for her new reading initiative, “Read with Kylie.” It’s a free initiative that includes physical kits students check out and a website parents can use to teach children reading’s foundational skills.
Altier guides parents through the steps “of a 20-minute low-prep, high-impact nightly home routine that has helped her succeed in her classroom for 11 years and with her own 4-year-old,” according to East Baton Rouge Schools.
Watching all the seeds Altier is planting is a thing of beauty. May each of those seeds find the right combination of nurture and light to thrive, but the lesson I learned from her garden party is even the seeds planted and tucked away, almost forgotten in the dark, have a way of sprouting.