In the second week of May, the English Through Volunteering class has a volunteer visit scheduled to Avery Park, where Corvallis Parks and Recreation will have a project for us to help with.
Whether it’s trimming the roses, picking up the grounds, or one of several other tasks that must be done daily and weekly to maintain the park, students are looking forward to participating in taking care of one of the many green spaces that make Corvallis such a livable and healthful community.
For the first volunteer trip of the spring, students visited SAGE community garden, a project of the Corvallis Environmental Center. They learned about food insecurity and how networks of social organizations work to ensure that all community members have access to healthy food, consistently.
Student experiences:
Pre-Service
I am excited to volunteer at SAGE garden and help people there to plant and grow vegetables and fruits that will help the society and people, and it will also help the environment by producing the oxygen in the air. I expect to help people there by growing and planting seeds, and also to weed. As a ” green thumb ” person, I used to help my father – who is a proud farmer – by planting seeds and harvesting dates from palms then drying them under the sun for days. I hope from this visit to gain extra knowledge and experience and help people who are in need by planting some foods for them.
Post-Service
Volunteering at SAGE was a valuable experience in which I felt that I did something good and helped people in this community. SAGE garden is a small garden that helps the community by planting some foods and Organic vegetables. We start our volunteering with the seed taping, by separating parsnips seeds into a two layers of a toilet paper, then folding them into a piece of paper. This process will help the seeds to germinate easily in the soil. Later after that we planted some peans into a manured soil. And finally we cleaned the soil from bad herbs and roots, then we grow some plants such as Money Plants. It was a really good experience and I enjoyed it very much.
Abdulmalik Alhudaithy – Saudi Arabia