By Morgen Tracey
Serving with Seneca Rocks Discovery Center
My name is Morgen Tracey, and I am an AmeriCorps member with AFNHA, serving at Seneca Rocks Discovery Center. Here at SRDC, we offer multiple interpretive programs and have a historic site featuring a heritage garden. The Historic Sites Homestead is open weekends and is full of interpretive displays that cover the history of early American families in West Virginia from 1850-1870.
Homestead site and heritage garden
Over the years, the Forest Service noticed that visitor numbers are lower than expected and realized this may be a sign that most people do not know about this site. To bring attention to the Homestead and Heritage Garden, we decided to make bouquets from the garden and bring them over to the center. Each week, I take time to carefully put together flowers, herbs, and other filler plants into an eye-catching arrangement. At different times, there are new blooms and growth from the different plants and flowers, so we are able to get a wide variety of bouquets. Once I’m done, I set up the bouquet next to the coffee with an interpretive sign that reads, “Take a second to enjoy the beauty and fragrance of the flowers from the Historic Sites Homestead and Wayside Inn.”
Bouquet created from flowers in the heritage garden.
I do think that this has helped grab the attention of some visitors and leads them to further explore. Our mission here at Seneca Rocks Discovery Center is to educate the pubic about recreation, the Appalachian ecosystem, and the rich history of the area. Getting people to the historic site is such an important objective because of the cultural and historical information that visitors can learn and connect to at multiple levels, whether that be emotionally, nostalgically, or out of pure interest.
At the end of the day, the best way to make a lasting effect is through connection. The Historic Sites Homestead and Heritage Garden is a place that people can relate to through the universality of home and family. This deep-rooted history of West Virginia is something I believe everyone should experience.
