They’d spent hours pulling weeds until their shoulders and backs were sore, or sawing at tree limbs until their fingers were numb with cold, but the students of Community High School never expected that the Ann Arbor City Council would publically award them for their volunteer work with Natural Area Preservation. And yet, that’s exactly what happened Tuesday, Sept. 3, when a handful of Community students was invited to the recently revamped City Hall to receive a Volunteer of the Month Proclamation in honor of the hours they spent maintaining our city parks each fall and spring.

Together with CHS teacher Marci Tuzinsky, and a pair of representatives from NAP, the two rows of students in business casual clothing watched as the City Council took their seats, recited the Pledge of Allegiance in perfect unison, and began the meeting by calling NAP and CHS up to the stage.

“It’s great to see citizens of all ages volunteering,” stated Ann Arbor Mayor John Hieftje, presenting the award to Nick Hagopian-Zirkel, a junior at CHS, “but especially the young ones… Right now there’s a real ethic developing of going out and volunteering, and we want to honor that.”

The Volunteer of the Month Proclamation is awarded each month to a group or person who has made an invaluable volunteer contribution to Ann Arbor City Departments like NAP. Each department is assigned a different month to nominate their best volunteers, and according to NAP coordinators Christine Chessler and Tina Roselle, when NAP’s turn came up, “Community was at the top of our list.”

In 2010, Forum Council President Gabe Appel-Kraut suggested that CHS students do something for the larger Ann Arbor community on Earth Day. Ever since then, CHS students have been working with NAP, taking two days out of the school year to leave the classroom and help our local parks. By now, the biannual work day has become a well established tradition at CHS, and last year, student volunteers uprooted nearly four tons of garlic mustard, a highly invasive species.

“I like the work day because it’s outside,” said Noah Moorehouse, CHS junior. “It’s a nice change of pace.”

“I like it because we don’t have to go to school,” quipped Isamu Inuzuka-Boyle, another junior.

NAP currently manages, protects, and restores 165 Ann Arbor parks, and to accomplish this task, they require a lot of volunteer effort. “[NAP has] a small crew, and a small outreach department, but really most of the work depends on the volunteers that our involved with our parks,” explained Roselle. That’s where groups like CHS, as well as individual volunteers, come in. Thanks to the citizens of Ann Arbor, NAP is able to fight invasive species, track animal populations, and maintain the physical beauty of the parks.

Although she acknowledges that determining which parks need work, assigning forums to parks, collecting supplies, and arranging for volunteers to manage the CHS students and staff is a monumentally difficult task, Chessler is adamant that the advantages outweigh the  disadvantages. “It’s definitely worth the 20 hours it takes us to have 400 people volunteer for four hours each,” she said. “That’s a lot of manpower.”

The nearly four tons of garlic mustard uprooted at last year’s spring work day can attest to that. CHS volunteers really have made a huge difference in helping our parks, and both NAP and CHS look forward to continuing this relationships in years to come.