ROGERS — A group of 50 volunteers spent their Saturday digging in the dirt and helping to plant a reading garden for Grace Hill Elementary School in Rogers.
"We get to get dirty and we get to go outside at school longer," Rhianna Phillips, 10, of Rogers said.
Phillips is in Amy Smallwood's fifth grade class at Grace Hill and is looking forward to getting to spend some time outside reading this school year.
"Reading inside is kind of boring but when we get ready to come outside and read, it is cool," Phillips said.
When asked about his favorite book, Elias Vazquez, 10, of Rogers could not pick a single one.
"That is a tough question," Vazquez said, as he continued to try to narrow down his favorite book to just one.
"He is reading something all of the time," Smallwood said.
Like Phillips, Vazquez was also excited to be able to help his teacher build a reading garden on Saturday.
"I like helping to make the reading garden," Vazquez said, noting that waking up early on Saturday was not hard for him to do because he enjoys the fresh air.
Should the weather be nice, Smallwood plans on spending time on Monday outside in the new reading garden which will contain several benches and container plants, Smallwood said.
Plans for constructing the reading garden started at the end of last year's school year when Smallwood found out she has received a $4,500 grant from Lowes to build the reading garden for GraceHill Elementary.
"A lot of my kids live in apartments or duplexes and they do not get a chance to plant a garden or really get outside," Smallwood said.
"I grew up in the country and that was a big part of my childhood so I wantedto give them a chance to (plant a garden)," Smallwood said.
Several employees from Lowe's in Rogers were on hand to help build the reading garden and they were just as excited as the children are about the project.
"We were excited to hearabout it when they told us about the garden because some of the other stored were bragging about being able to do it so we were wondering when Rogers was going to get to build one," Melissa Boudreaux, human resources manager for Lowes said.
Area, Pages 2 on 09/20/2009