Freshmen Continue Daffodil Planting Tradition

In 2017, Grace Goldman ’18 began a Daffodil garden at Fort Worth Country Day near the Upper School as part of the global Daffodil Project, which honors and recognizes the 1.5 million children who perished during the Holocaust. For the past seven years, FWCD students have planted daffodil bulbs in the garden in the fall. FWCD has planted over 2,000 bulbs to support the project.

Launched by the Atlanta-based nonprofit Am Yisrael Chai in 2010, The Daffodil Project began with the planting of 1,800 bulbs and has expanded to over 565 locations worldwide. The program provides the first 250 bulbs at no cost, with the participating organizations committing to planting another 250 within two years. Some organizations, like FWCD,  plant many times that amount.

Grace, the daughter of FWCD Third Grade Teacher Heather Goldman and Elliot Goldman ’90, initiated this garden project because she was inspired by her late great-grandmother, Blanche, a survivor of Auschwitz who was sent to a labor camp rather than the death camps during WWII. Grace’s grandmother and Blanche’s daughter, Rachel, have been instrumental in sustaining the garden at FWCD by generously donating the 250 bulbs to plant each year.

Grace was further inspired when reading Elie Wiesel’s book Night in her freshman English class. She proposed her project to English teachers, suggesting it as a partner to Night because she believed her classmates would be similarly inspired. After Grace graduated, her brother, Grant ’20, kept the project going. 

Hailey Seiden ’26, following in the footsteps of her brother Alex’s ’25, took the lead on the project this year, working with the 86-member freshman class to plant bulbs during advisory on Tuesday, December 2. The fruits of their labor will bloom in the spring, just as they read Night in their English classes.