Whispering Pines Friendship and Tolerance Garden

In our Friendship and Tolerance Garden students plant native Florida plants to demonstrate the ecosystem and plant flowers to attract butterflies in our butterfly sanctuary. Students also plant flowers and bushes around our school campus. Student maintain the areas by weeding and mulching.

To teach students the importance for caring for their environment, team work and helping those in need.

Whispering Pines Elementary created the Friendship and Tolerance Garden as a memorial to remember those who lost their lives as a result of the terrorist attack on 9-11-01 and to those Americans who have lost their lives in the fight for freedom. It is one of three gardens registered in Florida with the US Forestry Department as a 9-11 Living Memorial Project. The garden is our symbol for the elimination of prejudice and intolerance. The garden is a site which requires working together to build a ‘micro-universe” in which students, parents and community serve as an allegory for world cooperation. The Garden Club was formed in September 2002 to teach the importance of caring for ones environment and the need for teamwork. The Friendship and Tolerance Garden was expanded to include a vegetable garden whose produce is donated to a local agency that feeds the needy.