Hope Academy of Public Service students Jose Alvarez, Jaiden Brown, Luke Martin and Cynthia Tomlin tend one of the box planters at Denny’s Place, the earth sciences garden at HAPS. The garden, named for the late Denver L. “Denny” Dickinson, will benefit from a $500 Arkansas School Garden Grant Program award recently announced. – Hope Public Schools

HOPE – Denny’s Place, an earth sciences garden at the Hope Academy of Public Service, has been named an Arkansas School Garden Grant Program grantee.

The $500 grant will be used to supplement earth sciences and other curriculum applications for the outdoor garden/classroom under the Education Accelerated through Service and  Technology (EAST) program of the Hope Academy of Public Service.

HAPS EAST teacher Jacqueline Brady said development of the garden has been a collaboration between the EAST program and the Hempstead County Master Gardeners of the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service.

“We have a meeting set with the Master Gardeners for next Friday to discuss how we will use the funds to improve the garden,” Brady said. “We are thinking about planting some fruit trees, mushroom beds and doing some different things we haven’t done before.”

“Denny’s Place” was named in October, 2018, for the late Denver L. “Denny” Dickinson, a longtime member of the Hope Public Schools Board, in recognition of his longstanding support for public education and the HAPS concept in Hope.

The raised bed garden is configured in the shape of the letter “H” and features multiple planting spaces which are used to raise vegetables, herbs, and flowers. The planting spaces are surrounded in the entire configuration by tiles purchased by donors to the project which are painted or marked with the name and/or business logo of the sponsoring donor. The unit’s “outdoor classroom” includes a covered lecture area with benches, outdoor sinks and storage units.

The Arkansas School Garden Program is an outreach of the Arkansas Department of Agriculture funded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture Specialty Crop Block Grant program and is designed to promote production of fruits, vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits, horticulture and nursery crops in Arkansas schools.