posted by Pat Brennan, green living, environment editor
Her father remembers the moment as a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy ordeal: Savannah, only 8 when she died of a rare heart tumor in 2007, had been soldiering through chemotherapy and was tired of the bland hospital fare.
“While in chemo they were giving her this awful milkshake, milk and sugar,” Joe Sachen III remembered this week during a break from planting an organic garden in her name.
Sachen and his wife, Lisa, found a macrobiotics expert, who recommended organic food for Savannah. The effect, Sachen said, was almost immediate.
“The first day, she said, ‘Mom, I don’t even feel phlegmy anymore,’ ” Sachen said.
She received organic food from then on, but the experience had an even more profound effect on the girl.
“Her dream was to have her own organic ranch some day,” Sachen said. “She was an incredible kid. She was such a wise old soul, very intelligent.”
Sachen, of Aliso Viejo, created a foundation called Savannah’s Organic Ranch in his daughter’s honor and has been planting organic gardens at Orange County schools in her name ever since.
He and a number of volunteers — some of them children, his own three children included — spent the past two weeks laboring over his latest one, a small plot at Lincoln Elementary School in Corona del Mar.
Early Friday morning, Sachen will hold a dedication for the new garden, where he will grow rosemary, thyme, tomatoes, lavender and cauliflower.
After this one, his fifth, he’s planning three more. His eventual goal is to buy an actual ranch and grow organic food there. He has looked at some property but made no purchase yet.
The idea is to provide school children with pesticide-free food and with lessons on composting, recycling and protecting the environment.
He says it’s the kind of thing that would have delighted Savannah, who seemed so powerfully focused on her chosen vocation — organic farming — at such a young age.
“She knew what she wanted to do in life and how to do it,” he said.
On Your Team,
Kurt Galitski
The Kurt Real Estate Group
Vice President, Weichman Realtors
877-957-6677
