Spring Guide 2024: Warner’s memory lives on through YMCA learning garden – The Clanton Advertiser

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Kathleen Warner’s family around the memorial bench in the newly expanded Kathy Warner Memorial Orchard at the Chilton County YMCA. (LORI PATTERSON | CONTRIBUTE)

A dedication service for the garden was held on March 23 that allowed guests to tour the expanded learning garden. (CAREY REEDER | ADVERTISING)

A new youth playground at the Chilton County YMCA is centered around the learning garden. (CAREY REEDER | ADVERTISING)

YMCA of Chilton County CEO Lori Patterson, left, with Kathleen Warner’s husband, Lee Warner, during the March 23 dedication service. (LORI PATTERSON | CONTRIBUTED)

The garden expansion added a new 50×15 garden bed that included new vegetables that the youth at the YMCA tended and grew. (CAREY REEDER | ADVERTISING)

by Carey Reeder | Managing editor

Kathleen Warner was a beloved figure in her field of career, community and family, and as of March 23, her legacy is now memorialized at the YMCA of Chilton County with the Kathy Warner Memorial Orchard.

Warner, who was an active member of the YMCA and had a passion for education and children, passed away unexpectedly in November 2023. He was a high school teacher in his early life and became a Diagnostic Medical Sonography (DMS) educator. , teaching students at UAB. and start a DMS program at Lawson State Community College.

After her death, her husband, Lee Warner, and the rest of her family requested that donations be made to the YMCA to benefit the learning garden that the facility was in the process of creating and expanding. Lee Warner said the YMCA has become like a second home to him and his wife and the two have become close to the staff. Being able to see the donations made in honor of Kathleen Warner physically and locally was a big motivation for the Warner family to request that the donations go towards the garden.

On March 23, a dedication service was held at the Chilton County YMCA to commemorate the garden in Kathleen Warner’s name, and give guests a chance to see the finished product.

“Lori (Patterson), Liz (Doonan) and their team have just done a phenomenal job with her, she’s beautiful,” Lee Warner said. “It’s a great tribute to my wife Kathy and who she was, and I couldn’t be more grateful for it. The service itself was great. The meeting in the gym, the time to reflect on what the garden does for the community , and also take a moment to reflect on who Kathy was and why this is a good fit for her memorial.”

Warner family, friends, YMCA members and Chilton County residents attended the service. Lee Warner spoke to the crowd about his wife’s legacy, and what it means to him and the family to have the garden dedicated to her. Refreshments, fellowship and a chance to tour the garden will follow the dedication service.

“This is something we’ve been looking forward to since January, and we’ve been working really hard to prepare and get the (garden) expansion ready for today,” said Lori Patterson, CEO of the YMCA of Chilton County. “We have a lot of new vegetables, new fruits, new trees and everything is ready to grow and bloom.”

The outdoor space is used for many programs that the YMCA hosts such as gardening, cooking, cooperation, friendship, poetry, health and more. The garden is planted and maintained by youth (kindergarten-seventh grade) involved with after school and summer programs at the YMCA. The young remove the garden, check the insects and use the food they grow to cook and eat, giving another way to try new and nutritious food that they have not tried before.

The products and flowers of the garden will also be sold in a market managed by YMCA on two Fridays in June and two Fridays in July, and it will be in front of the entrance. The money raised at the market goes back towards the garden.

The thought of building a learning garden came about because it gave the children a different way to be active and interested in food, but it became more than that, learning things like teamwork and friendship .

“When planning summer camp and afterschool, we’re always trying to come up with ideas, activities or content areas that interest them, and I like to introduce things that keep them active as well,” Patterson said.

Donations made in honor of Kathleen Warner helped expand the garden by adding fruit trees, a grapevine, a 50×15 garden bed, blueberry and blackberry bushes, picnic tables, a fence and a memorial bench that leads his name

“When (Kathleen) and Lee moved into this community and came to the Y, they just embraced things for us — youth development, social responsibility and us trying to make an impact on our community. ,” Patterson said. “They became very involved very quickly … Her presence was there. She’s someone, I personally, I’m going to miss, but as a team we’re going to miss her, too.”

The Kathy Warner Memorial Orchard and Youth Nutrition & Agricultural Learning Lab can be seen at the YMCA of Chilton County at 405 Ollie Ave., Clanton.