Stories of Service
AmeriCorps Project Conserve members take away many great stories of their time in service. We'll share some of those stories here each month.
Junie Michel, FENCE
PolkCentral Elementary Schoolcontacted us about taking part in their Arbor Day event. Because of scheduling conflicts we couldn't actually take part on Arbor Day but we had a great activity with the 4th grade students.
The school recently put in a nature trail and has been working to keep it up. They removed all of the Virginia pines along it and have been working to turn it back into native woods. This is where FENCE (and me) comes in.
Normally we do things with students in the classroom or in the science lab, but I thought it would be awesome if we spent some time outside. I brainstormed on some activities that we could do with the students on the nature trail and thought planting trees would be the most fun and have long term benefits to the school.
I contacted the Polk County Forester to find out what types of trees would be best on that site and would have the greatest likelihood of survival given lack of care. I then contacted the state Department of Natural Resources, the seedling division. They donated some trees to us and FENCE purchased the rest. I decided to plant a mixture of hardwoods there as this would better resemble a natural forest and give students an understanding of diversity and its importance to forest ecology.
On March 17th, we walked to the trail and spoke about trees, ecosytems services and importance to human industry. We discussed the best way to plant to ensure success and I modeled it. Then students broke into groups of three and chose which type of tree they would like to plant. Students were told they were the parents of this tree and they would need to take care of them to make sure their babies survived. They had stakes on which they wrote each group member's name and the name of their tree. Students chose some really imaginative names and really got into the parental role. I then took pictures of each group with their 'babies'. Upon visiting the school later, some students told me they had visited their trees and were seeing them change and leaf.
Allison Kiehl, Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy
One of the most rewarding days of my AmeriCorps service year so far was participating in the sevice project for MLK day. I volunteered with the Burton Street Community - a group working to revive impoverished areas of West Asheville - to clean up a section of stream running through the neighborhood that is to be turned into a greenway. It was very inspiring to work with this group as well as others that came just to help out. There were people cooperating with each other from all different backgrounds, cultures and communities, and it took quite a bit of teamwork to get the large amount of debris out of the stream. It felt great to be a part of a diverse group coming together for the same cause and lending a hand to a community in need. All together we collected one large dumpster full of trash, one large dumpster of recyclables, one trailer full of lumber and scrap wood, one truckload of scrap metal, as well as several tires and cinder blocks out of the creek corridor. It was very rewarding and made me feel that this is what AmeriCorps is all about.