CHESTERTOWN — Along with celebrating art, music and the natural environment at the annual Art in the Garden earlier this month, the Garnet Elementary School community honored the late Vanessa Maddox, a longtime substitute teacher at the school and a staff member in the county’s Parks and Recreation Department.
At the May 7 event a bench made of recycled bottle caps collected by Garnet students, bearing a memorial plaque with Maddox’s name, was unveiled.
Garnet students contributed to the celebration with their paintings and drawings, on display in the garden, and with their musical performances including playing the bucket drums and singing for the bench dedication.
The garden itself is cared for by the Chestertown Garden Club, and its members prepared for the community event by mulching the full garden that runs the length of the front of the school.
The idea for a bench made of recycled bottle caps to honor Maddox came from the school’s Green Team, a club of fourth and fifth graders who learn about environmental sustainability and promote awareness for protecting the natural environment. About 17,000 bottle caps make one bench, according to Jenny Freeberry, chair of the Chestertown Environmental Committee.
Fourth grader Ari Dawson is a member of the Green Team that started the bench project in honor of Maddox, who passed away in February 2025.
“It was important because ‘Ms. Vanessa’ was a very good friend of mine, and we spent lots of time together, and I felt that she really needed to be memorialized. I felt that my part in the project helped because I gave, I feel like, some good ideas,” Ari said.
Community Schools Specialist Flo Terrill, who organized Art in the Garden, said the entire student body worked together to collect bottle caps — beginning last November and concluding this March.
Garnet students and staff, families, friends and local restaurant owners collected and donated bottle caps and lids for the project, according to Terrill.
In addition to student collections, the environmental committee helped make up the difference in caps necessary to make the bench, Terrill said.
The bottle caps were stored in The Shelter Alliance’s free clothing closet in the Kent Plaza until they were ready to be transported to the bench-making facility.
As for honoring Maddox with the bench, Terrill said students loved not only seeing Maddox in the classroom, but in the summertime for camps with Parks and Recreation.
Maddox was a mentor to students as well as Garnet staff, according to Terrill.
“She raised a lot of the kids in Kent County … and she was very, very pivotal for me personally,” Terrill said, noting how Maddox helped Terrill learn about the school and the neighborhood when Terrill first moved to Kent County in 2009.
Maddox “was really a very special, inspirational person to the staff and the kids, and so it’s really exciting” to honor her, Terrill said.
Freeberry, the environmental committee chair, said the bottle caps collected by Garnet students filled a pickup truck.
A volunteer with the Chestertown Environmental Committee, Patrick Gahan, transported the bottle caps to the Delaware facility, Eco Plastic, where they were manufactured into a bench.
Gahan also brought the finished bench back to Chestertown.
The Chestertown Environmental Committee’s work in collecting and facilitating the recycling of bottle caps and other plastic items at the Chestertown farmer’s market for the past five years has allowed more than 20 recycled plastic benches to be created for the town, Freeberry said. Several are located near Emmanuel Episcopal Church, two are in Wilmer Park, one is in front of Chesapeake Bank and Trust and several others are scattered around town.
Freebery said she has been impressed by the work of the “passionate young people who care about the environment” on the Green Team.
Activities at Art in the Garden included filling a bag with fruit and vegetables to “Eat the Rainbow” from Lockbrier Farms; learning about soil for gardening from the Chestertown Garden Club and about recycling from the Chestertown Environmental Committee; arts and crafts such as notebook-making with RiverArts’ KidSPOT and thumbprint animal drawing with local 4-H representatives; face painting from National Honor Society students at Kent County High School; and selecting books from The Bookplate — as well as others hosted by local groups like Sumner Hall and The Shelter Alliance.
Dinner was provided by Papa Smurf’s food truck.
According to Carolyne Grotsky of the Chestertown Garden Club, The Mill donated the 17 yards of mulch necessary to landscape the area before the event.
Grotsky said about 30 people volunteered on May 2 for a “wonderful community effort” to mulch the garden, which stretches the length of the school’s front facade in the 300-block of Calvert Street.
“The garden was started as a community effort to not only landscape the school, but it was to bring the community together,” Grotsky said.
The garden club is looking to increase its partnerships with community members to help maintain the school garden. Grotsky said students and their families are encouraged to get involved with weekly weedings at Garnet.
For more information, email thechestertowngardenclub@gmail.com.
