Many hands make light work during the delivery by Big Creek Lumber to Live Oak Elementary School.

Live Oak Elementary students muscle a bag of soil to the school’s Life Lab.

Third graders at Live Oak Elementary School unload the lumber, soil and tools donated by Big Creek Lumber for new garden boxes in the school’s Life Lab Garden. Big Creek’s school garden grant program, now in its ninth year, awarded the grants to 10 local schools this year including Branciforte Middle School, Happy Days Children’s Learning Center in Live Oak and Live Oak Elementary. The garden kits include redwood lumber and soil courtesy of Big Creek and garden tools donated by Orgill, and all kits are delivered directly to the schools so they can assemble and use immediately. As are part of Big Creek’s 70th anniversary celebration in 2016, the garden grant program was established to support school garden programs in the areas where the company does business. The boxes utilize sustainably harvested redwood and are donated to schools in the areas near Big Creek stores: Santa Cruz, Watsonville, the San Lorenzo Valley, Atwater, Half Moon Bay and Paso Robles. Big Creek Lumber Co. has been in business since 1946 and remains a family-owned lumber company. The McCrary family has lived and worked on the Central Coast for seven generations and currently operate a sawmill, wholesale department, six lumber yards, a forestry department and a logging operation. Through the nine years of the garden box grant program the company has provided the grants to 92 schools and in 2024 grant winners included San Lorenzo Elementary School in Felton, Alternative Family Education in Santa Cruz, and Landmark and Mintie White elementary schools in Watsonville.

Tools donated by Orgill head to the Live Oak Elementary Life Lab.

Big Creek Lumber’s Anthony Carrillo, left, and Live Oak Elementary Life Lab teacher Kai Parker, right, work with students to stack the planter box lumber delivered to the school.