Local students at a La Grange elementary school are getting their hands in the soil — and the whole community has a reason to celebrate. Congress Park School, part of LaGrange School District 102, has earned the Julia Rappaport Growing Gardeners Fund Grant from the American Horticultural Society, bringing national recognition and new garden resources to the school's campus.
LaGrange School District 102 announced the award on February 12, 2026. Congress Park School teachers Kristine Carbray and Aaron Dembowski are leading students in grades 3 through 6 in the project. Together, they have already gathered supplies and begun winter sowing native plants — including milkweed varieties, blazing star, and purple echinacea — chosen to create habitats for monarch butterflies and other pollinators right on school grounds.
The project reaches beyond the garden beds. The work ties directly into Congress Park School's Dual Language Program. Students are exploring cross-cultural understanding and the geography of the Americas as they study monarch butterfly life cycles and migration patterns. The butterflies' long journey across North America gives students a living connection between the plants growing outside their school and the wider world they study in class.
The Julia Rappaport Growing Gardeners Fund Grant is awarded each year by the American Horticultural Society to educators who want to start or grow gardening projects in schools and communities. The fund was created through a gift from Thomas Byrd and Valerie Rappaport and their family, in honor of Valerie's mother, Julia Rappaport — a longtime American Horticultural Society member and board member who loved gardening, science, and education. Grant recipients are announced each year at the national Children & Youth Garden Symposium in July.
The pollinator habitat project is ongoing this school year. Families who want to learn more can contact Congress Park School at (708) 215-6007 or LaGrange School District 102 at (708) 482-2400.
