By WINTER JOHNSON Special to the Daily Press
The lessons imparted by one late local educator will not be lost on the generations to follow.
A Los Angeles-based organization, entitled Olive Branches, has created a symbol of peace and tranquility in Santa Monica — a watershed education garden — in honor of Carol Williams-Kaback, a dedicated PTA president at Edison Language Academy, who died before her dream could be realized.
Olive Branches, whose focus it is to transform the landscape of Los Angeles “one neighborhood at a time,” has extended its reach to the Santa Monica public elementary school. The watershed education garden marks a meaningful event in both the school’s and the organization’s history, as it’s the first green space that Olive Branches has completed.
A Community Partners project, Olive Branches was established in 2002 by former reporter Carolyn Ramsay, who seeks to build green spaces in low-income neighborhoods. “Green spaces” include community parks where children can play, community gardens where the hungry can grow food, tree plantings, public gardens and school gardens, according to Ramsay.
Such projects create a unity between the park and its community, as each design reflects the culture, history and ethnicity of the local residents. Named after her daughter Olivia, Ramsay’s Olive Branches creates the areas in order to help the environment and bring a peaceful element to neighborhoods.
“The goal of the organization is to help low-income neighborhoods, the neighborhoods that don’t get the attention right away,” Ramsay said. “People in these types of areas are working all the time and don’t have the time to raise money for projects like this.”
Through the vision of Williams-Kaback, Olive Branches arrived at Edison. Williams-Kaback died in 2003 of a sudden brain tumor. The school has the highest percentage of non-English speaking students in Santa Monica’s elementary schools, at 52 percent, while 62 percent of the students are economically disadvantaged.
Olive Branches was “a good fit,” according to the school’s interim principal Lori Orum.
Williams-Kaback had a goal to transform the concrete courtyard on the school’s campus into a reading garden to encourage student learning. However, she died before she was able to realize her dream. After her death, landscape designer Esther Margulies, partner in Mia Lehrer + Associates and friend of Williams-Kaback, took up the charge along with Orum. Contacting Olive Branches, Margulies asked to raise money and oversee the project. Margulies, also a board member of Olive Branches, designed the garden pro bono.
“When she passed away, there was suddenly a strong desire to preserve her memory at the school that she was so involved in,” Margulies said. “She was an incredibly open and friendly person who made communities around her.”
The project’s funding derived from a variety of joint efforts. Olive Branches raised more than $20,000 in grants and private donations for the $50,000 design and established a maintenance fund at the outset of the project that provides money for future upkeep. The city of Santa Monica gave more than $13,000. Valley Crest Landscape Development, Shaw and Sons concrete contractors and The Garden Detail contractors donated more than $20,000 in labor, plants and supplies to the academy. The Theodore Payne Foundation donated plants.
Olive Branches’ work has not stopped with the dedication ceremony in April 2005, however. The non-profit is continuing to raise money to extend a mural to the adjacent library wall. The green space is surrounded by a four-walled mural of the Santa Monica mountains, painted by muralist David Legaspi, that teachers plan to use as a teaching tool on the path of water from rain to the ocean.
Through the efforts of many, the concrete courtyard has now become a watershed education garden, named “Carolina’s Garden” in honor of Williams-Kaback. As functional as it is aesthetically pleasing, Margulies has designed a garden that conserves water in every aspect, she said.
The garden includes water conservative plants: native salvias, heuchera, yarrow and a native oak tree.
To assist with cleaning the water before it reaches the bay, the former concrete floor now has spaces in it that allow the water to go through the aquifer, watering the local habitat before it runs into storm drains.
Orum has plans of making the landscape part of a bilingual educational curriculum. The garden already has changed the face of the elementary school. Children go there to read and enjoy the shade on sunny days, and there are regular poetry readings.
There has been a greater understanding of what citizens do to the quality of water, according to Margulies. Edison Language Academy’s new garden and organizations such as Olive Branches educate the community about the connection between the water one uses and its effects on the environment.
“We want the kids to be good residents of the ecosystem,” said Orum.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 18, 2005. Read the original PDF.