Kids connecting with history at the Castro

Admin | December 16, 2016 |

By Charlie Kieffer, Castro family descendant and Castro Adobe Committee member

I want to share with you something very heartwarming that took place at the end of a school tour at the Castro Adobe on Friday, Dec. 2.

We had 19 kindergarten children from Watsonville Charter School for the Arts. They had a very good time. They did roping, tortilla making, adobe brick making and checked out the bear skin.

It is such a joy to see very young children take their minds to places that we adults will never understand … or maybe we just lost how to do it.

To make a small adobe brick and be so very proud to show it to you and then tell you that they are going to take it home to show their mother and father… To make a tortilla, cook it on a cooking area that has a very hot, flaming fire, put whatever they want on the tortilla — no one is telling them what to put on it — and think it’s the best tortilla they ever ate …

At the end of the tour, their teacher handed me an envelope and said, “What a great time they had.” On that envelope was all of the 19 children’s names and inside the envelope was $47.50 in cash. Each child had donated $2.50 for the Castro Adobe. It was so very heartwarming!