When you first walk into Friendship Place, you see an excellent library with no wrong book choices, then you find a table in the kitchen big enough for many children to gather.
Then, walk out the kitchen door, and you’ll find the gardens.
This depiction comes from Jane Barton, a retired teacher who has dedicated 20 years as a University of Minnesota Extension Master Gardener volunteer in Olmsted County. On any given day during seven-weeks of summer, she may paint you a picture of children in those gardens, eating sweet corn right off the stalk or discovering photosynthesis through a leaf-pounding activity.
What kind of a place is this, you may wonder.
Friendship Place opened more than 25 years ago to serve children living in the Meadow Park apartment community along 4th Ave. SE in Rochester.
“We offer a safe, welcoming place to belong after school and in the summer. Here, kids — mostly from refugee families — accomplish things they didn’t know they could do,” says Gregory Parker, co-executive director.
Each summer, Master Gardener volunteers and Extension health and wellness staff help children grow nutritious produce they enjoy.
4-H saw potential from the start
An Extension 4-H youth development educator, Patrick Jirik, built the original garden beds. Parker is talking with 4-H about programs again for this summer.
“We have taken the kids to the Olmsted County Fair to see that the fair is not just rides and games,” says Megan Wilson, 4-H youth development educator. "They can even take the flowers and vegetables they grow at Friendship Place to the county fair as a 4-H project."
Steve Juenemann, a Master Gardener volunteer, built more frames several years ago, while others amended the soil in 2024. With 20 framed beds, Friendship Place now grows enough produce to donate extra to the community.
Solid science education
Volunteers and staff follow the Children's Garden in Residence curriculum, according to Mary Nesberg, Extension educator in Olmsted County. The curriculum relates directly to Minnesota Academic Science Standards.
“The Master Gardeners are teaching science: how plants grow, soil health, pests and more,” says Parker.
Minnesota 4-H lesson plans add creativity. In one, children learn about local bird species, make paper beaks, then run a relay race to learn from the bird's perspective.
They may use a pipette to draw water out of a sponge, mimicking a nectar-sipping hummingbird. A carnivore bird lesson involves acting like a hawk and tearing the flesh (t-shirt material) off a Beanie Baby animal.
Appetites stimulated, children prepare a bird’s-diet berry-themed snack.
From garden seeds to healthy snacks
Kowsar Adan, an Extension health and nutrition coordinator, working closely with the Master Gardeners last summer, gave children a voice in what to grow for food. “They put together their wish list, and it was predominantly watermelon!” she says. “We encouraged the children to diversify a bit.”
Adan teaches them how to prepare the garden produce they grow, modeling different ways to eat healthy foods.
“It’s relevant to them,” says Parker. “Kowsar connects about foods from her Somali heritage.”
Children from Mexico and other Spanish speaking countries were surprised to see Adan also knew about their cuisines. “I’m always playing around,” she says. “They really appreciated that they saw themselves in those recipes.”
If some of those vegetables taste better with butter, she has that covered with a dairy science lesson. Children shook cream in containers until butter formed, then made ice cream the same day.
“By the end of the summer, these kids really shine,” Adan says. “You can just see how much that green space improved their wellbeing and how they felt about themselves.”
Give more so youth learn more
The team is excited that a family services counselor who volunteers at Friendship Place is taking the Master Gardener core course herself now. “Having more trained Master Gardeners is always a plus,” says Nesberg.
“Gregory reminds us that the food they get there might be the only meal they eat that day, so we will try to go bigger and better,” says Adan. “These are really great kids and we are happy to do that for them.”
“It has been a blessing to have Extension programming at no cost to the families for all of our existence,” says Parker. “When a child puts a seed in the ground and soon after sees a 10-foot sunflower, imagine what that does to their sense of accomplishment.”
Early care and schoolyard gardens
In 2025, University of Minnesota Extension Master Gardeners volunteered with 62 school-based gardens. Gardening and science lessons go together, for example:
- Students at Gideon Pond Elementary School in Burnsville learned how to start seeds, what plants need to grow, and how and when to harvest the crops produced at the school garden.
- To restore the Woodcrest Spanish Immersion Elementary School’s rain garden in Fridley, Master Gardeners and students cleared invasive weeds, amended the soil and planted native perennials, learning how the rain garden helps manage stormwater.
- Through hands-on learning activities at Pine City Elementary School, children learned about birds and their needs, and how to help birds survive and thrive by how they design their garden.
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