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THE SOUTHEAST
ADVOCATE
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THURSDAY FEBRUARY 12, 2015 H
COURSEY • HARRELLS FERRY • MILLERVILLE • OLD JEFFERSON • PARKVIEW • SHENANDOAH • TIGER BEND • WHITE OAK THEADVOCATE.COM
Gardening project benefits Episcopal
Darlene Denstorff
Students present successes on Senior Launch Day
AROUND THE SOUTHEAST
BY C.J. FUTCH
DDENSTORFF@ THEADVOCATE.COM
Library hosts Valentine’s Day events Visitors to the Jones Creek Regional Branch Library can craft Valentines for their loved ones Saturday, and attend story time program and book club meetings at 6222 Jones Creek Road. The library will be closed Tuesday for the Mardi Gras holiday. For information, call (225) 756-1140. Here are a few upcoming offerings.
The Crewe of the Creekers
The Jones Creek Library floats will roll, inside the library, when the Crewe of the Creekers celebrates Mardi Gras from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday. Patrons can stop by the library branch and join in the festivities. Refreshments will be served following the parade. Call (225) 756-1150.
Mardi Gras mosaics
Teenagers can “laissez les bons temps rouler,� or let the good times roll, from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Thursday as they create a festive mosaic from old Mardi Gras beads. Beads will be provided, but patrons are welcome to bring their own. Call (225) 756-1170.
Alzheimers support group
Family members and friends can meet and share experiences and information about Alzheimers and dementia from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Monday at the library. Dianne Miller will lead the discussions. Call (225) 7561180.
Last-minute valentines
It’s not too late for patrons to craft valentines for the ones they love. Those interested in making their special someone a valentine can stop by the library atrium from 9:30 a.m. to noon Saturday and craft a card and envelope. The event is for adults. Call (225) 756-1180.
cfutch@theadvocate.com Growing lettuce is harder than Eden Guirard realized, the Episcopal fifth-grader said Feb. 5, standing in front of lush, green heads of varying sizes growing in a hydroponic system she and classmates Joshua Gregoire and Crawford Grigsby constructed. Their teacher, Sonny James, guided them as part of a fifthgrade science class project. A lot of things went wrong before they figured it out, Guirard said. But it was the successes that brought the students before
the Episcopal High student body Feb. 6, presenting their results in a presentation in the school’s Visual and Performing Arts Center. They took turns explaining the trial-and-error process of setting up the hydroponic system, feeding the plants with a liquid solution of nutrients and constantly monitoring the conditions of the system to make sure they fell within acceptable parameters. “We went out and read the temperature and pH and TDS (total dissolved solids in the nutrient mixture),� Grigsby said. “Only, one time, we had to
check TDS in the freezing cold, while it was raining,� Gregoire added. It was then that the fifthgrade class decided to ask for help from the senior honors thesis program, and the collaborative effort became part of the presentation. Seniors Monty Travis and Kendall Ravey devised and installed remote sensors to test for all the things the students had to test manually, along with wireless capability to send the data to a computer set up in James’ warm, dry classroom. The results of this cross-
Advocate staff photo by TRAVIS SPRADLING
Episcopal High School Senior Kendall Ravey, 18, third from left, an adviser to younger students, from left, Joshua Gregoire, 11, Eden Guirard, 11, and Crawford Grigsby, 11, on their hydroponic garden project, listens as they discuss the rail system for their äSee PROJECT, page 3G garden Friday at the Episcopal High Launch event.
Groups pack food to feed the hungry Volunteers make meals for children in Africa BY MARK H. HUNTER Special to The Advocate
More than 1,470 people volunteered with the international mission groups Children’s Cup and Feed My Starving Children to pack 272,160 meals to feed hungry African children during an ambitious “mobile packâ€? event Friday and Saturday at Healing Place Church. “We hit our goal,â€? reported Jim Brock, a volunteer coordinator for the Prairievillebased Children’s Cup, and a shipping container filled with the food, enough to feed 745 children for a year, will soon be on its way to southern Africa. The volunteers, from dozens of churches, schools, businesses and youth and civic groups, also donated $50,000 for the shipping, but an additional $12,000 is still needed, organizers said. The story, however, is not about the thousands of “Manna Packâ€? meals or even the äSee HUNGRY, page 4G
Photo provided by MARK H. HUNTER
The Rev. Jerry Sharp, center, prays over the last box of Manna Packs of rice packed at a Feed My Starving Children event to benefit Children’s Cup mission in Africa, on Saturday at Healing Place Church. Nearly 2,000 volunteers packed enough to feed hundreds of children for a year, filling an entire shipping container.
Scatter art valentine
After hearing the story, “I Love You: A Rebus Poem� by Jean Marzollo, children will create a scatter art valentine, using confetti and colorful hole punches, from 11 a.m. to noon Saturday. The craft is for children ages 5 and up. Registration is required. Call (225) 756-1160.
Zoo Mobile visit
The Zoo Mobile will visit the library from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday. The program will be approximately äSee SOUTHEAST, page 4G
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Master gardener talks home growing, offers tips BY C.J. FUTCH
The Louisiana Master Gardeners group is out in force volunteering its expertise to On its face, gardening is the Baton Rouge metro area on simple. All you need to make how residents can grow their things grow are sun, seeds, soil own food, year-round, if they choose to. and water. At a seminar Feb. 5 at the But there are other considerations at work when it comes to East Baton Rouge Parish Ligrowing a backyard vegetable brary’s Bluebonnet branch, garden — especially productiv- master gardeners gave a twohour tutorial on how to set up a ity and convenience.
cfutch@theadvocate.com
garden and the resources available to those who want advice. Master Gardener Richard Babin gave step-by-step instructions on creating a raisedbed garden to a full room of participants during the free seminar. Raised beds have a few advantages over traditional row gardens for smaller backyard spaces, Babin said, including
improved yield and drainage and easier access for garden maintenance if well planned. They also offer a good solution for areas with poor soil. Choosing the site is the top priority, Babin said. Look for a spot that will get at least six to eight hours of sunlight per day and has the best drainage, he said, and take into consideration whether power and water
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sources are nearby. One of the disadvantages to raised and container gardens, fellow Master Gardener Don Moore said, is that they require more frequent watering than in-ground gardens. Sketching out the beds in advance and to scale is a great planning tool to head off any äSee GARDENER, page 3G