Fairmount’s Teen Arts Council Plants Pollinator Garden

Aidan, Audrey, Caleb, Camryn, Crispin, Liz, Lillian, and Vivian get together every Monday at Fairmount’s Novelty center. They gather around a table that is often full of arts supplies, snacks, and carefully laid plans created by Abigail Dyet, Fairmount’s Assistant Director of Programming. Just over a year ago, this group, Fairmount’s Teen Arts Council, was brand new. It was created to offer artistically inclined teens a community with like-minded peers that taught leadership skills through a creative lens. The group has participated in public community building events at Fairmount, embarked on adventures together to see local productions and museums, and have created a tight-knit group of peers who share in their love of visual and performing arts. 

The Teen Arts Council with local horticulturalist and Fairmount alumni, Jay Szabo in spring 2025. The group began discussions of their plans for the pollinator garden and planted their own seedlings together to commence the start of the project.

Since last spring, this group has been working towards installing a communal pollinator garden in Fairmount’s front lawn. The process began with the teens researching native pollinator species and speaking with area experts like Fairmount alumni, Jay Szabo, a local Horticultural Garden Design Consultant. With their research, they wrote a grant proposal learning the ins and outs of the non-profit world. “The grant writing process was very tedious and long,” said Caleb, followed by Camryn who remarked on the amount of indoor work the project required before they were able to start anything outside. “It was like 100 to 1,” she said.

The group was dedicated to transforming Fairmount’s outdoor space with the goal of raising awareness of Fairmount’s off-the-beaten-path location. “If you put something inside, people aren’t going to see it, but if you put something outside, people will be like ’oh that’s cool, let’s go check it out,’ said Camryn. “They’ll notice it because there’s not just grass there anymore,” said Caleb. The decision for a native pollinator garden also stemmed from a communal passion. “With the number of invasive species we have in this area, it is nice to continue having more that are native,” said Crispin, “These will need a lot less maintenance for the next several years than other plants.”

The teens worked together to plant the 33 native pollinator plants on May 11.

Fairmount is grateful for the support of the Figgie Foundation, Native Landscapes and Gardens, and Mapledale Farm Landscape Supplies for their contributions in making this project possible. Native Landscapes graciously donated a multi-stem redbud tree to replace the sickly redbud tree, and removed three invasive burning bushes on the northeastern corner of the building, replacing them with two native Eastern Ninebark shrubs. They formed new flower beds for planting and spaced out 33 native pollinator plants for the teens to plant together. Mapledale Farm Landscape Supplies aided in making the space more welcoming with a recycled plastic poly bench.

Amy and Jesse of Native Landscapes & Gardens spacing out the pollinator plants.

Before

After

Seeing the project come to life was a rewarding experience for the group. “I hope people talk about it,” says Aidan, “I hope I’m going to be walking up the stairs to class and hear people out of the corner of my ear say ‘wow I like the new garden’”.

Fairmount will host a ribbon cutting event on Monday, June 1 at 5pm to officially open the pollinator garden. Please join us in celebrating our Teen Arts Council and their hard work!