Local Elementary School Wins Give Back to Gro Youth Gardener Award

MARYSVILLE, Ohio, May 26, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- ScottsMiracle-Gro together with Scholastic Parent & Child® magazine recently announced Tyler Run Elementary School's third grade class as the winner for the Give Back to Gro® Youth Gardener Award.  Elementary schools in select Ohio areas submitted classroom essays, poems or picture entries to win the coveted spot.

"We were very impressed with the creative and thoughtful poems from the winning classroom," said Carlos Hernandez, Director Gardens Marketing, ScottsMiracle-Gro. "This is a great example of how the educational program is helping children experience nature in new ways, and for many, quite possibly for the first time. This also connects families through sharing the gardening experience at home."

As the grand prize winner, Barbara Sheehan's class at Tyler Run Elementary will be recognized at the ScottsMiracle-Gro World Headquarters and tour the Global Research and Development facilities.  As the winning school, Tyler Run Elementary will receive $1,000 worth of ScottsMiracle-Gro products and $500 in Scholastic books.

Says Ms. Sheehan, "We are so thrilled to have had this opportunity. The students were motivated by the Gro kits that were mailed to the school. It worked really well with our curriculum as we explored life cycles of plants and animals. We chose to use poetry to express our thoughts about nature since we were exploring poetry during our reading/writing workshop. The process motivated us to plant flower seeds around our school." 

Earlier this spring, ScottsMiracle-Gro collaborated with Scholastic Parent & Child magazine to create a custom mailing designed to foster a love of gardening in children. Each participating classroom received customized kits featuring engaging and educational materials for budding gardeners and complimentary ScottsMiracle-Gro greenhouses with a Gro-Pod ™ for each child. Classrooms were also invited to enter the contest with entries that explained why gardens were important to them and their community.

Two runner-up classrooms in Dublin, Ohio will receive ScottsMiracle-Gro products to help maintain a beautiful landscape.

About ScottsMiracle-Gro

With approximately $3 billion in worldwide sales, The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, The Scotts Company LLC, is the world's largest marketer of branded consumer products for lawn and garden care. The Company's brands are the most recognized in the industry. In the U.S., the Company's Scotts®, Miracle-Gro® and Ortho® brands are market-leading in their categories, as is the consumer Roundup® brand, which is marketed in North America and most of Europe exclusively by Scotts and owned by Monsanto. In Europe, the Company's brands include Weedol®, Pathclear®, Evergreen®, Levington®, Miracle-Gro®, KB®, Fertiligene® and Substral®. For additional information, visit us at www.scotts.com.

About Scholastic Parent & Child®

Scholastic Parent & Child is one of today's leading parenting magazines, reaching more than 7.5 million parents. Parent & Child was created for families with children ages birth to 12, and one hundred percent of the editorial content is dedicated to informing parents on topics that serve the entire family, including child development, well being, health, activities, travel, fashion, and food. To visit the magazine's online site, log on to www.scholastic.com/parents. To learn more about Scholastic, visit our online media room mediaroom.scholastic.com.

SOURCE The Scotts Company LLC