Garden is labor of love

A garden slumbers in front of Sand Creek Elementary School in Coon Rapids.

Eight stones are scattered among the winter-brown stalks and last year's mulch; like gravestones, they are marked with names and dates.

Yet this is no cemetery on school grounds. The garden is a place of memory and a labor of love.

And like memory and love -- and gardens -- its evolution has moved in cycles of growth and dormancy.

Twenty years ago this fall, a pin oak was planted in the center of the school's circle drive, to memorialize Mike Andrie, a third-grader who died after suffering a seizure at school.

Before long, the tree died. So did two others, including one planted for a girl who died in 1991.

After former student Mitchell Berg died of cancer in 1995, his parents suggested a memory garden that would be dedicated to any student who died while at Sand Creek. The Berg family, friends, school staff and the PTO planted the garden during 1995 and 1996. Many perennials came from volunteers' gardens and were planted for their own loved ones.

Now, the school holds assemblies there. Each day, school patrols raise the flag there.

But Mike Andrie's father, Greg Andrie, wondered whether current students would feel the loss of children who died, often before they were born.

"I enjoy stopping at old cemeteries," he said. "There are so many children in them. I guess I would think when these little kids are walking through that memory garden, they're there like when I walk through, 'Oh, that's sad, a little kid here.'" Principal Paul Anderson said he thinks he should do better at making sure the student body knows the garden's history and meaning.

But when she worked in the garden, Kimberly Berg said, people stopped to offer a hug, or a memory, or to thank her for her work. Once she was joined in her weeding by a group of Mike Andrie's classmates.

Time goes on and life gets in the way. By the time Sheila Callahan registered her children at Sand Creek five years ago, the garden had grown weedy and unpruned. With help from another parent, Shelly DeBaker, Callahan went to work culling and bringing order to the riotous garden.

In 2006, cafeteria paraprofessional Lynn Slaughter died of cancer. A stone was placed for her, followed by a bench for PTO treasurer Marty Stadler, who died in 2008.

Callahan has drawn in more community partners. Volunteers have been hard to come by, but she said she's dedicated to the garden as long as she's in the community.

For her part, Berg said the garden is a place to go and remember her son.

"We never want our children forgotten," she said. "Someone else might not know their story, but it's a neat place. It means a lot to me that other people go there. That's what it's meant to be."