White House Easter Egg Roll 2016: #Let’s Celebrate…Plants!

wh_eer_logo_color 2016“Let’s Celebrate,” was the theme of the 2016 White House Easter Egg Roll on March 28. This action-packed, health-oriented day celebrated the holiday and the First Lady’s Let’s Move! initiative.

From our spot down by the First Lady’s garden, the ASPB booth celebrated plants with the happy youngsters and families who visited during each of the five, 2-hour visitor shifts (~3,000 ticketed entries per shift). They came to the ASPB booth to:

  • create a mini-garden cup necklace of lettuce, radishes or carrots – like in the First Lady’s garden
  • talk about how plants keep themselves and all living things healthfully hopping along each day
  • collect a copy of My Life as a Plant
  • poke their face through the photo op banner for a plant-tastic photo

See below for a few insights from and all of the names of the many ASPB volunteers who helped youngsters celebrate the  importance of plants (even vegetables!) to our daily lives. And enjoy the event gallery here: [tribulant_slideshow gallery_id=”12″]

It was a pleasure to interact with so many children and see how they are interested in plants and, yes, healthy foods.  
~Julian Schroeder, ASPB Immediate Past President

The children were very excited to grow garden necklaces. We took the time to ask each child if they knew what plants need to grow (air, soil, sun, and water) and I was impressed that many of them could tell me! It was also fun when they came to the booth and exclaimed, “Oh, I made these last year!” You could tell it was a hit! What a great experience!      ~Natalie Henkhaus, ASPB Staff

It was incredibly rewarding to see this excitement in all of the kids. And, I was really impressed that so many of them already knew the basic things plants need to grow and actually have their own gardens at home. I’d love to [volunteer] again next year!    ~ Stephanie Klein, Penn State University

Many of our enthusiastic young visitors knew at least three things that plants needed to grow (air was the tricky 4th component). We had some return visitors from last year who said that their plants grew great and they were excited to grow something again this year. Parents were excited, too, including a few players from the Washington Redskins who enthusiastically joined their children in creating Garden necklaces. Watching 6’6″ offensive tackle Morgan Moses sprinkle lettuce seeds into a cup was entertaining.      ~Molly Hanlon

Thank you, Volunteers!

ASPB celebrates these amazing volunteers from our membership*, Society leadership** and our plant-interested community***:

Daniel Czerny*
Molly Hanlon*
Jimmy Jiang***
Alan Jones**
Bonnie Jones***
Cathy Jones***
Stephanie Klein*
Justin Kuan***
Ryan Myer***
Angelina Reid***
Christian Reid***
Elsa Reid***
Julia Schroeder***
Julian Schroeder**
Nicola Schroeder***
Janet Slovin*
Marion Spors***

 …and staff helped, too!

Natalie Henkhaus
Stephanie Liu Kuan
Tyrone Spady
Crispin Taylor

 

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