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Christmas Plants Grow People
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The top-selling potted plant in North America may be sitting in front of you right now…it’s the poinsettia. Each year, there are over 250 million dollars in poinsettia sales during the weeks before Christmas. As Kim Riemland reports, one special group in Mississippi grows the plants…and, in turn, the plants help the gardeners grow skills and self-worth. |
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SCRIPT:
(Locator: South of
Senatobia, Mississippi)
Nat sound: watering plants
Gale Guynes/Baddour Center Resident: “It makes me happy, knowing that I
do the best I can, to the best of my ability.”
This poinsettia is flourishing, and so is its gardener, Gale Guynes (gwines),
who is a mentally challenged resident of the Baddour (bod dur) Center in
Senatobia (sin uh toe bee uh), Mississippi.
Raising poinsettias is part of plant therapy at the Baddour Center, a
United Methodist outreach. Their slogan: “Growing people with plants.”
Shannon Kim/Director of Education and Research, Baddour Center: “It
means that as you are involved with something, you grow together with
that thing.”
David Holland/Baddour Resident: “We water and fertilize them and let
them grow.”
The center grows and sells about 9,000 plants to churches, homes, and
businesses each Christmas. It takes a bit of a green thumb…and patience.
Nat sound loading truck: “On number 43.”
Viola Graham/Baddour Resident: “You have to let them dry out and
everything, and not over-water them.”
It takes special timing and care to get poinsettias to bloom…and the
same goes for the residents.
Parke Pepper/Administrator, Baddour Center: “Our folks often have either
talents or abilities that I would say surpass the talents and abilities
of many others. And we just have to help them recognize that.”
If the Baddour Center automated the process like other nurseries, it
would mean fewer jobs, and fewer opportunities for the 170 residents,
who range in age from their 20s to their 70s. This is a hands-on
operation.
Wes Pittman/Horticulture Director, Baddour Center: “What we’ve produced
here is not only helping people as they purchase it, but we also help
the people that grew it, and we’re a little better human beings when we
get through.”
TAG:
The Baddour Center is located south of Senatobia, Mississippi. The
center sells some of its poinsettias at a garden center on the grounds
of the group home. They’re sold from Thanksgiving right up until
Christmas.
For more information, contact the center at:
www.baddour.org
or call: 662-562-9666.