Children's Garden at Vance Park draws curious minds

The Children’s Garden in Vance Park is a wonderland of activities, nature and fun. A butterfly pavilion, a maze made of bushes and a garden are a few of the things that children can see and do at the garden through Aug. 26.

The garden is open 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays. Admission is free, but children must be accompanied by an adult.

The garden is sustained by a collaboration between the city, volunteers and local businesses. It was created in 2007 as a way to “take back Vance Park.” Kathy Minden, volunteer chairwoman of People for Parks, says that before the project, the park was plagued with crime. “We’ve created a family-friendly environment where rape and murder had occurred,” she says.

Now, children sit playing board games with adults and pick out books to take home, courtesy of Start Making A Reader Today (SMART).

In the butterfly pavilion, about a dozen orange monarch butterflies flutter around inside a mesh tent. The pavilion serves as an official way station for the butterflies, whose habitat has become endangered in Mexico, Minden said. A way station provides resources to help the critters make new generations and sustain migration.

Curiosity is afoot in the pavilion, as it is throughout the rest of the garden. “Why can they not fly away?” asks Sydnee Wray, 5, pointing toward the mesh walls. The blond, pigtailed 5-year-old kneels, sticking her face close to a plant. She carefully rubs her finger down a caterpillar clinging to a leaf and looks up at her grandma. “Why does it stick very well?” she asks.

Minden says “the children have opportunity to observe the full life cycle of the monarch, and see that transformation can happen.”

“We’re raising future entomologists and biologists,” says Minden, explaining “even 4- and 5-year-olds know there have to be bees for fruits and veggies.”

Throughout the garden, plants are marked with signs announcing their name and a few facts. “Sunflowers are large bright flowers ... the petals can be used for dye and even the stems can be used for making papers and textiles.”

Some of the plants are activities in themselves. One sign encourages visitors to rub a plant's leaves and then smell their hands. This scratch-and-sniff Peanut Butter Plant smells just like peanut butter.

Many people volunteer in the garden, including about 24 Umpqua Bank employees. However, the garden gives back to the community as well. The food produced in the garden goes to SnowCap Community Charities, an organization that provides emergency food baskets in East Multnomah County. Also, the garden currently has three Central American interns who will take home with them the knowledge they learn this summer.