Community Transition Program students Faith and Emily are shown here, flanking Vocation Transition Specialist Rachel Hermansen, as they got real-life work experience ringing up plant sales. (Photo by David F. Ashton)

Business was brisk on a Saturday, in late spring, during the second sales day at the Portland Public Schools’ “Community Transition Program” Green Thumb Campus, in the Brentwood-Darlington neighborhood.

Perhaps encouraged by the sunny spring weather, within hours of opening the day for business, many of the plants in their greenhouse had been scooped up by gardeners.

“Everything that we’re selling today are ‘products’ from our student interns, who are working here throughout the week,” observed Vocation Transition Specialist Rachel Hermansen. “They start all these plants from seed and propagation, they’ve been maintaining them and building our inventory, and now they’re also participating in the plant sale.”

Even though the annual sale started with “thousands of plants – for example, we had at least 500 tomato plants to start with – the tables are already starting to look bare, because everything is selling so quickly,” Hermansen said. “This may be our best single day at one of our sales, ever!”

The PPS Community Transition Program works with students from 18 to 21 years of age who are gaining the community-based skills, life skills, and vocational skills, explained Hermansen. “The ‘Green Thumb’ greenhouse is one of our vocational training programs, intended to build work-readiness skills for future employment.”

The Green Thumb Campus, if you’re not familiar with it, is located at 6801 S.E. 60th Avenue.