Imagine a gaggle of wide-eyed toddlers encountering this scene one cold day in the not-too-distant future:

Bright green spinach growing through the snow.

Ooooh, neat.

Isn't that cool?

How could that happen?

Will it get bigger?

Can we touch it?

An exciting gardening project made possible through Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse of North Springfield, work by the Missouri Extension Office and Head Start staffers will give dozens of children hand's-on experience right where they go to pre-school.

They'll see fruits and vegetables grow, discuss nutrition and nature, weather and worms. They'll even get to eat the results of their labor.

It's a nice collaboration, the kind that can really help improve social services when government pursestrings tighten.

This happened because a business had employees willing to do volunteer work - they call them Lowe's Heroes - a government agency offered expertise without trying to run the show and an educational entity was able to accept quick help without a lot of red tape.

Three 16-by-4-foot raised gardens were built in one day, Nov. 7, by about 25 workers. The gardens now sit - complete with special sills to allow 3- to 5-year-olds to clamber without getting hurt - at the Douglas, Grant and Stewart Head Start centers.

More than 200 children total should get the opportunity to watch vegetables grow, learn some of the math and science basics involved in gardening and eventually get to gobble up some of the fruits of the labor.

The Head Start agencies, which serve children assessed as living at the poverty level, keeps nutrition education as a basic goal. The gardens can help reinforce healthy eating and also demonstrate the rewards of planting and cultivating to kids who might not have the opportunity at home.

Lowe's presented the idea to Head Start. Then, extension workers stepped right in to the offer advice on the types of plants - nothing with poisonous leaves for instance - as well as schedules for planting and care.

Ozarks Area Community Action Corporation is the grant-holding agency for Head Start and OACAC's Child Development Director for Head Start Amy Chenoweth credited Lowe's manager Ben Martin and Patrick Byers of the extension office with getting the gardens going.

She said the children not only got the chance to get their hands dirty but some also were able to watch the construction: a bunch of big strong adults showing up at their little school to do a favor, and help them learn.

This is a good lesson all around.

We hope it germinates.