Will benefit community garden

Doyle Valley Farmers Market will present a rainwater catchment workshop with Billy Kniffen 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. May 14 at Peabody-Burns Junior/Senior High School.

The workshop will include an informational lecture in the morning, a catered lunch, and hands-on installation of a large-scale rainwater catchment and gravity-fed drip irrigation system for Peabody-Burns High School Horticulture Department’s new community garden.

The department hopes the garden will become a big part of the community. The department will have a booth at the Doyle Valley Farmers Market, teaching students how to sell their produce, and extra produce will be donated to the Peabody Senior Center and families in need.

“This is a great opportunity for the kids in the district to really get hands-on experience in how to grow their own food,” Doyle Valley Farmers Market President Debbie McSweeney said. “If you give a man a fish, you’ve fed him for the day. If you teach him to fish, you feed him for life.”

A community resident donated $1,000 to the rainwater project to help buy tanks. The remainder of the expenses will be paid with money earned by the Warrior Soil Greenhouse’s plant sales.

Kniffen is a Texas AgriLife Extension Service water specialist, Aemrican Rainwater Catchment Association accredited professional instructor, Texas A&M Board of Regents Fellow Service recipient, and founder of the Texas Rainwater Catchment Association. His home in Menard, Texas, uses rainwater for all of its needs.

To register for the workshop, contact McSweeney at (620) 983-9234. Reservations are due Saturday for the lunch.