CRESTVIEW — An untended garden in the corner of Riverside Elementary School’s playground sprouted Daisies Thursday afternoon: not flowers, but the youngest Girl Scouts.
Six- and 7-year-old girls of Troop 687 prepared a butterfly garden to commemorate children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in December.
Troop leader Tisha Davies said the conversation with the young girls was "very difficult," but the girls understood the Sandy Hook children were now in heaven, and wanted to do something to memorialize them in Crestview.
The girls, wielding rakes, hoes and shovels, were under the supervision of two dads, two moms and Joel Carden of Crestview landscaping company 7C's Services. Charlee Becker of the Crestview Kiwanis club assisted them.
Kiwanis members donated a blue birdbath and an oval polished stone marker dedicating the butterfly garden to Sandy Hook victims. Carden donated mulch for the garden's flowers and shrubs.
Pitching in were Daisy Taylor Davies' twin older brothers, Alexander and Christopher, 7.
The girls took their work seriously. Azlin Dowling periodically proudly displayed a clump of weeds she'd pulled up, while Shuntay Douglass needed the playground fence’s support to get a good jump onto her shovel to dig in around a weed.
Daisy Molly Keller's dad, James Keller, will build and donate a cypress butterfly house for the garden.
Riverside Principal Marline Van Dyke and Assistant Principal Kelli Sanders stopped by to observe the progress.
"It's beautiful!" Van Dyke said. "We love it."
Contact News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes at 850-682-6524 or brianh@crestviewbulletin.com. Follow him on Twitter @cnbBrian.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Daisies plant butterfly garden at Riverside Elementary