Finding ways to grow together

Mathis Winkler

COSTA MESA -- They came to plant flowers and vegetables, but something

else caught their attention first.

“I found a cocoon,” yelled Gary Ottens, a 9-year-old member of the

Costa Mesa Goat Hill Go-Getters 4-H Club.

“Let me see, let me see,” said 5-year-old Phillip Allevato, barely

able to peek over the rim of the raised flower bed.

Together with five other children, the two boys had come Tuesday to

Costa Mesa’s Silverado Senior Living home for people with Alzheimer’s

disease to garden with residents.

They are participating in a program called Growing Together, which was

created by Costa Mesa resident Susan Vocke as part of a leadership course

she’s taking.

“It’s a project to celebrate self-esteem with children and older

adults,” Vocke said. “To see how children interact with the elderly is

just awesome.”

Vocke used to own retirement homes in the city. Her interest in

working with seniors, as well as her grandchildren, inspired her to

create the program, she said.

So far, she’s also brought kids to five homes in Huntington Beach and

one in La Habra. Eventually, she hopes to set up intergenerational

gardening groups in every city in Orange County, she said.

“The whole objective is to touch, move and inspire,” she said.

Silverado resident Joan Hoskins said she liked the idea.

“I think it’s wonderful,” she said. “I think it’s great. The children

get a kick out of it and the residents too.”

Fellow resident Cecil Lynch agreed.

The kids “are pretty good at it,” he said. “It’s a lot of fun. When

you’re helping young people, it turns out to be a pretty good thing.”

Adam Allevato, 8, Phillip’s older brother, said his reasons for

participating were simple.

“I’m doing this because it’s nice to people to do this,” he said.

Like the other kids, Adam gets taught at home. But he said he was on a

vacation at the moment and therefore did the gardening in his free time.

He added that he did a little bit of gardening at home as well.

“But my mom does most of it,” he said.

Gary, who’d found the cocoon earlier on, was already much more of a

pro.

He grows strawberries, sunflowers, corn and tomatoes, and said he’ll

enter a purple bell pepper, celery and chilies in the Orange County Fair

today.

“I like gardening,” he said, adding that he had come to Silverado to

help the nursing home have flowers.

Nearby, Gary’s 12-year-old sister, Emily, inspected a bowl filled with

lettuce the kids had planted during an earlier visit.

She said she’d take one of the plants with her to enter in the fair.

And the residents “are going to eat the rest of them,” she said.

Vocke hopes the kids will keep returning to work in Silverado’s

gardens and said she wants to set up a luncheon for residents, children

and their parents to share the fruits of their labor.

“I would like to have everyone celebrate the project and what we have

done,” she said.

FYI

For more information on the Growing Together program, call (714)

557-0777.