Forest Park Middle School Garden Club
Lead Teacher
How FPMS Garden Club got started!
Mrs. Susan Milauskas is the 7th grade Science teacher at Forest Park Middle School.
Teaching Science is actually her second career. She originally majored in Horticulture at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. She began planting urban gardens on the southside of Chicago during her summer employment with the U of I’s Cooperative Extension Service 4H Gardens in the summers of 1975 and 1976. Over the years she has gardened extensively at home, working in greenhouses, a park district, a perennial nursery and finally working in the research department of the Morton Arboretum for six years before deciding to go into teaching. Mrs. Milauskas wanted to share her love of learning about the natural world with the next generation, so she went to Northern Illinois University in DeKalb to get her teacher certification. She taught High School for a few years, then joined the staff of FPMS in 2007. In 2009 she started a Garden Club with just a light stand and some houseplants. Wanting Garden Club to be a self supporting club, Mrs. Milauskas decided to have the club try raising garden plants from seeds donated by a former employer (Planter’s Palette Nursery) to sell to parents and teachers as the main fund raiser for the club. The Spring Plant Sale has become a regular feature of the school year at FPMS and raises enough to fund purchases of supplies like potting soil, fertilizer, seeds and funds a few field trips with a pizza party for the members of the club.
In 2010 Mrs. Milauskas was part of a group of teachers approached by the district administration to inquire whether the middle school could make use of a Healthy Living Grant that the village of Forest Park had received to create vegetable gardens on school property. In the fall of 2011, Mrs. Milauskas worked with grant consultants, village staff, school district staff and other volunteers (including Mr. Milauskas as the carpenter) to design and build the 15 raised bed school gardens. Grant money also supplied garden tools, a cart to organize and carry the tools, soaker hoses and a watering timer, greenhouse tents and 2 more light stands for the other Science classrooms. The gardens have become a wonderful blessing to many students, parents and staff as they grow throughout the summer and volunteers tend and harvest the vegetables and flowers.
Report on 4H Gardening at the South Side of Chicago 1976.
