On a sunny Friday in September, kindergarteners encircled Charlie Hernandez ’26 outside the Onondaga Nation School in Nedrow, New York. He was describing a new medicinal garden he and other Cornell students were helping the community install at the school, which would include native plants with cultural significance to the Onondaga people: sweetgrass, common elderberry and wild plum trees, nodding onion, wild ginger and strawberries.
One of the children raised his hand and said, “I like strawberries.” And then another and another and another.
“As each student raised their hand, they took a step closer to me,” said Hernandez, a plant science major in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and co-lead of the Sustainable Landscapes team, one of four teams comprising the Cornell Botanic Gardens’ Learning by Leading program. “Seeing their excitement and engagement and then seeing the children learn the process of planting – that was really rewarding.”
The collaboration was supported by the student-run Community Partnership Funding Board in the Einhorn Center for Community Engagement.