By Sean P. Ray | Managing Editor

OBSERVATORY HILL — On a sunny and warm March 14 morning, a group of around 45 students from Perry High School put down their textbooks, picked up gardening tools and headed down to Zenshine Community Garden, all in the name of making sure they can graduate.

And it won’t be the last time they’re doing so.

Perry High School has partnered with Zenshine Community Garden and Urban Impact to create a community service opportunity for students looking to fulfill a graduation requirement by helping out at the garden. Pennsylvania Act 158 makes one of the requirements for graduation the completion of a service learning project.

Zenshine Community Garden is located in Riverview Park’s Kilbuck Valley, and started in 2022. The garden features several planting boxes in which a variety of plants, including locally grown produce, are cultivated, as well as a stone labyrinth designed to help improve mental health.

Dorrie Smith-Richie, executive director of Zenshine Community Garden, said Urban Impact and Perry High School reached out to her to pitch the collaboration. It was an idea she was only all too happy to go along with.

“It’s wonderful,” she told The Chronicle, “and that was one of the biggest things that we were hoping to accomplish with this garden — to get a lot of students involved, especially high school students.”

Students rotated through various work stations during their time at the garden, performing a different task at each. Activities included building planting boxes, testing soil, maintaining the labyrinth, and painting stones and signage to be placed in the area.

Lee Robinson, president of Zenshine, was on hand to teach students about the garden’s labyrinth, which he designed. Robinson said a labyrinth differs from a maze because a maze is a “puzzle” and creates “stress” to navigate, whereas Zenshine’s labyrinth is designed to be a relaxing and calming experience.

It helps that the labyrinth itself is not delineated by impassable walls or hedges, but lines of stones which can be easily stepped over should someone wish to leave. The labyrinth circles around itself before leading to the center, where a tree stands, and a person can get out by following the same path they took to get to the middle.

Robinson said many people will perform yoga or just sit and relax once they reach the center. He was hopeful the students’ experience with the labyrinth and their day down at Zenshine in general would help provide a “different kind of awareness” to their surroundings and life.

Chidozie Oparanozie, the school partnership coordinator with Urban Impact, said the choice to do a community service project at the garden “made sense” due to its location.

“The garden is between (Urban Impact and Perry High School),” he said. “It was kind of divinely appointed.”

Besides just location, Oparanozie said there were many advantages to a project down at the park. Chief among these was the exposure to nature students would experience, and also the focus on mental health that the garden provides.

Kortney McGarvey, assistant director of options at Urban Impact, said Urban Impact has long had a relationship with Perry High School and the organization is always looking for ways to meet the school’s needs. Creating a program for students to complete their service work, she said, was one such way Urban Impact could accomplish that goal.

Further, McGarvey said it was good when organizations and groups could work together and collaborate, rather than operating in individual “silos.”

Perry High School students help to build a planting box at Zenshine Community Garden. Photo by Sean P. Ray

Perry staff certainly seemed to appreciate the opportunity. Misty Doy, a ninth and 12th grade English Teacher at Perry, called the day down at Zenshine “absolutely marvelous,” and noted how much the students enjoyed it.

“The kids have just eaten it up,” Doy said. “I have been with the district for 35 years and this has been the most impactful collaboration.”

Indeed, those students who spoke with The Chronicle expressed enjoyment of their time away from the classroom and out in nature. Dae-Shawn Stine, one student, was particularly happy to be out in the park, saying he is always telling people to “get out, get that fresh oxygen.”

“Take in all of God’s creation,” he added for emphasis.

Brinnyah Wolford, another student, admitted she would “rather be out here than in school.” She especially enjoyed helping build the planting boxes, as one of the organizers complimented that she could be a future carpenter.

“I thought I was going to be digging in dirt and mud,” she said. “I didn’t think we were going to be doing activities.”

The March 14 service day was the first of three days the students will be spending at Zenshine Community Garden. Smith-Richie said this year is intended to be the pilot for future collaborations between Perry, Urban Impact and Zenshine. Representatives from all three groups expressed a desire to continue the service days in future years, meaning more classes of Perry students might be fulfilling their graduation requirements at the garden.

“For me, this is fantastic,” Smith-Richie said. “I couldn’t ask for anything better.”

In addition to the aforementioned three organizations, Tree Pittsburgh and 5 Points Marketeers Group were also partners in the collaboration.