Resident Eileen Hall says she has been nurturing the small plant she was given when students from Strawberry Valley School visited Eskaton Washington Manor this past spring.

Eileen said it was a big deal for the kids to put the soil and plants and rocks together in small plastic cups that day.

She and the other seven ladies who met with the students each got a plant to keep, and each student got one too.

“I really love it,” said Eileen, who replanted hers into a larger ceramic pot. “It’s a shade plant. It works perfect in my windowsill. I gave it a little Miracle-Gro and now it has flowers... It brought a little green to the scene.”

Students in Mariane Tinsman’s 2nd-3rd grade class visited that day as part of Eskaton’s Kids Connection, a program that recently won the California Assisted Living Association’s “Innovations in Quality Award.”