Jefferson teen wins award for work on garden site

JEFFERSON — Twelve-year-old Elizabeth Rushing of Jefferson is one of two students in Oregon to win a Prudential Spirit of Community Award.

She was the middle-school winner, and Morgan Hammers, 18, of Malin was the high-school winner.

The nationwide program honors young people for “outstanding acts of volunteerism.” The Jefferson Middle School seventh-grader was selected for clearing and restoring an overgrown nature garden at Jefferson Elementary School, her former school.

Elizabeth will receive $1,000, an engraved silver medallion and an all-expenses paid trip May 3-6 to Washington, D.C.

She was nominated by the Girl Scouts of the Santiam Council in Salem, from which she received the Scout’s Silver Award, the second-highest award a Girl Scout can earn.

Elizabeth estimates it took more than 40 hours this past summer to transform the 1/8-acre site on the northeast side of the school. She did have some assistance, however.

Her grandfather, Charles Rushing of Jefferson, helped her clear out enough debris to fill the back of a pickup seven times. And the groundskeeper at the school taught her how to use a chainsaw so she could remove a small tree from one of the three planting islands.

Once everything was out of the way, she asked local businesses for donations of wood, paint, plants and bark chips. With the help of her grandfather, fellow Girl Scouts, students and members of the community, she built and installed new benches and birdhouses, planted flowers and native Oregon shrubs, and reconstructed a path around the garden.

“The transformation of the garden from mess to beauty was amazing,” she said. “The students now have an area that can bring nature to the classroom.”

The new park-like area contains several green four-by-fours stuck into the ground with birdhouses perched on top. Bird baths sit atop plastic pipe painted green, and bird feeders hang from tree branches.

Daffodils and crocus bloom in the island beds that are ringed by rocks. Grass covers the rest of the garden.

The students in Room 5 will maintain the nature area.

“That class benefits most because they are the closest to the garden,” Elizabeth said.

Her father, John, is proud of his daughter’s work and is overwhelmed by her award.

He and Elizabeth’s mother, Brenda, who teaches at the elementary school, will go with Elizabeth to Washington, D.C.

There they will tour landmarks, attend an awards ceremony, visit the Smithsonian’s museum of natural history and meet their Congressional representatives.