Rain or shine: TKA Civics Society hosts observance for Daffodil Project

photo courtesy of Stephanie Dutton With the help of TKA Civics Society members, elementary students create their own daffodil pinwheels.

New this year, The King’s Academy Civics Society is commemorating the past while looking forward with a new hope. Since 2021, the TKA Civics Society has planted over 1,000 daffodils as a contribution to The Daffodil Project, a global mission dedicated to planting one daffodil for each child that died during the Holocaust.

“It’s always been our intention to have an observance and education event, which is actually part of having an official daffodil garden with The Daffodil Project,” TKA Civic Society Sponsor, Mrs. Kitty Singleton said.

The Daffodil Project was created in 2010 with a small group in Atlanta that planted 1,800 daffodils in one memorial garden. The project’s primary goal is to plant 1.5 million daffodil bulbs to represent the 1.5 million children lost during the Holocaust. In 16 years, over 1,146,787 bulbs have been planted across the world, with just around 350,000 bulbs left to reach the 1.5 million daffodil goal.

“We’ve been working toward an annual observance since the first year of our daffodil garden, but it’s a very difficult time of year to schedule an event in February and March,” Mrs. Singleton said.

Since the Civic Society’s first daffodil planting five years ago, they have been taking the steps behind the scenes to also include an observance.

“The first couple years is actually pretty tough sledding, planting the daffodils, because this original daffodil bed is pretty much solid rock,” Mrs. Singleton said.

Even though the Civics Society struggled when first planting the daffodils due to the rocks, the soil has become more fertile as years have passed by with additional bulb plantings.

“It took us probably six hours to plant the daffodils in this bed the first year, and then after the first year we moved down into the medians and now we’re trying to cover the hill behind the parking lot,” Mrs. Kitty Singleton said.

The Civics Society strives to expand their daffodil gardens to plant more bulbs to honor more children, as well as to create a larger flowering presence on the school’s campus.

“We would like, in the future, to incorporate some of our younger elementary students on the planting day, and we could plant even more bulbs,” Mrs. Singleton said.

This event took place Feb. 26 at 10:30am on the lower campus in front of the original daffodil garden. Elementary students had the opportunity to create daffodil-inspired pinwheels as a creative way to remember what they learned.

“It’s always been something we were working toward, and this will become an annual event,” Mrs. Singleton said.