Memorial garden honors Jeremiah Chass

Analy High School senior Lia Tamminen pulled weeds Sunday morning in the school’s memorial garden for her friend and former Analy student, Jeremiah Chass.

“It’s surprised me how wonderful it’s felt to work in this garden,”

Tamminen said.

The garden was planted last year following the shooting death of Chass, 16, by two Sonoma County sheriff’s deputies as the teen suffered a mental health crisis.

Wednesday marks the one-year anniversary of his death.

Several students and Chass family members gathered Sunday to help weed and hoe.

“It’s been very healing for them to work in the garden,” said Yvette Chass, Jeremiah’s mother, who was part of the work crew.

Jeremiah’s younger brother, Isaiah, worked with the high school students, carrying handfuls of weeds over to a waiting wheel barrow.

The large garden includes numerous triangle-shaped raised beds, alive now with a variety of colorful vegetables and signs of spring growth.

A sign above the garden entrance reads “Jeremiah Chass Memorial Garden a work in constant progress.”

An undeveloped piece of land adjacent the garden is slated for a fountain and peace garden, Tamminen said.

“Part of Jeremiah’s dream was to really clean up the school,” said Tamminen.

The garden is a way to honor his hope that the aging campus get a cleaner look, she said.

Jeremiah would have been a senior at the Sebastopol high school this year and many of his friends are seniors now.

There is a concern among his friends that when they leave, the students at school won’t have known him and won’t have the connection with the garden and his memory, Tamminen said.

“We have a goal to make it more of a sustainable place,” she said. “We’re hoping to get younger students to carry on.”

But there were signs Sunday that younger students will care and do care.

Sophomore Aman Desai came to help and he didn’t know Chass.

“I like being outside and I like helping out,” Desai said.

“My philosophy about gardening is you put your hands in the earth and the earth puts its hands in you,” he said.