Something is Growing at High Rock

October 8, 2026
• Students are partnering with the Needham Housing Authority to provide fresh produce to residents in need.

As they clustered around their crops, a group of seventh graders shared some gardening tips: Harvest ripe tomatoes before rain, since they are prone to cracking. Be mindful of how critters may get to your plants. Worms are slimy, but they help things grow.

But perhaps the more important lesson, instilled from their adult advisors, is to give back to those in need.

While sixth graders at High Rock School, the students in the inaugural Environmental Club worked to plant and nurture a collection of vegetables and herbs in four raised garden beds outside the school. The produce they cultivate will go to residents of the Needham Housing Authority across the street.

Steve Miller, the school’s former community service learning coordinator who leads the club, said the initiative combines volunteer advocacy with hands-on learning. A previous giving tree project — a charitable holiday program — showcased residents’ need for groceries, Miller said, and the school’s unused dig boxes from archeology lessons were being repurposed as garden beds by NHA residents. Merging those two pieces made sense, he said.

Miller applied for a grant from the Needham Education Foundation to build the beds himself, and students got to work at the end of last school year. In partnership with Volante Farms and gardening business Wright by Nature, seeds and plants went in in early June.

“It’s been a real community project,” Miller said. The Recycling and Transfer Station also supplied the soil, and Parks and Forestry installed a water supply. The beds are located on the northeast corner of the school, right outside the fields.

Four students — now at Pollard Middle School — returned to inspect the fruits of their labor Monday afternoon, with hopes to begin harvesting next week.

All together, they planted tomatoes, Swiss chard, colorful string bean variants, kale, snap peas, parsley, shives, radishes, shishito peppers and flowers, including marigolds, snapdragons and Nasturtium.

Jackson Benet, a Pollard seventh grader, pointed out the tall tomato plants, held up by trellises. He helped his mother harvest a wagon full of tomatoes from their home garden earlier this summer. The tomatoes at High Rock still looked pretty green.

On Monday, he was looking for potential signs of pests.

“I remember, my mom’s garden, she had a plant, I think it was zucchini, they had a bug in them that would crawl on the stem and then kill it from the inside,” Jackson said, looking at the leafy greens. “So usually you can tell if this plant has holes in it, but like here, I think that’s just natural for lettuce.”

Herbs, like curly parsley, “spice things up a bit,” Jackson added. Students also cracked open a couple beans to scope out their insides and noted a small hole in one corner of a bed, maybe the doing of a mole or chipmunk.

Since they started the plantings late in the school year, the students said they had to be mindful of how different plants grow and the best way to help them thrive: water, the right amount of sun and a little TLC.

“We were planting them very late in the season, so we had to look up some things online about what plants we could plant and where they could be in the beds,” seventh grader Annora Hefner said.

Thomas Wright, of Wright by Nature, helped lay out the produce and works pro bono on upkeep as they grow. He enthusiastically showed the students progress on different vegetables, including bright red shisito peppers, which will get more hot as they ripen. Other plants, like lettuce, haven’t fared so well — tucked between competing plants, it missed sun exposure. One radish plant died and flowered, while others sprouted high.

“They’re super sweet,” Wright said of radishes, “and especially greens and root vegetables, when you harvest early, early in the morning, is when they can be the sweetest.”

Wright held three workshops last school year, where they discussed designing the beds, figured out the types of plants and planted them all together. The kids’ excitement was palpable, he said. Beforehand, he taught them about companion planting, attracting pollinators with flowers and how to care for crops in the winter into the spring.

“I love to teach and I love plants and there’s like a really great intersection in this community,” Wright said. “I think the most important thing is for the next generation to have a sense of how to grow your own food.”

That mission extends to the NHA’s Linden/Chambers residents across the street. The NHA primarily serves senior and low-income residents.

Laurie Blake, NHA resident services coordinator, sees an opportunity to bolster the partnership between the students and residents. High Rock sixth graders have made holiday cards for residents in the past, along with the giving tree.

“The residents here love working with the kids there,” Blake said. “I would love to see that relationship grow even deeper.”

While not much is ready for harvesting just yet, and with colder weather drawing nearer, Blake said she’s setting her sights on this upcoming spring, when new plants can begin to grow.

To put the mission in simple terms, “sharing is caring,” Macy Branchaud said.

“I just feel like giving them this helps them feel closer to the community,” the seventh grader said.

Macy’s twin sister Isabel Branchaud said the project is “a chance to help the community.”

“These are people who live right across from my former school,” Isabel said.

The High Rock motto is “Be Yourself ~ Become a Community,” which encourages students to “enrich our entire school family” through their experiences and contributions, Principal Jessica Downey wrote in an email. The garden, she said, “directly reflects our core values”: learning, self-discovery and caring for others.

Students are learning to take care of something tangible while caring for the world beyond the school walls, she added. The project combines gardening with sustainability and service to others.

“Whether providing fresh vegetables or vibrant flowers to local neighbors, our students discover that even the smallest act of care can create a powerful ripple effect across the broader community,” she added.

The Environmental Club met for the first time again on Monday. Miller said many of the students were drawn to join because of the garden. Students are also hoping to install a plastic cup recycling system at the Chestnut Street McDonald’s and examine the school’s recycling for paper products.

Before the Pollard kids dispersed, Wright handed out snapdragon flowers. With a little time and patience, the seeds, little and dried now, can become “a whole bunch of plants.”