Cleaning up Fuller Park
The spirit of Earth day gripped the Kulka forum as they walked to Fuller Park
together. On the way there, a few people even started picking up trash. Soon they were carrying handfuls, emptying them into the nearest trashcans and repeating that until they reached the park. After meeting up with another forum and a brief explanation of the work, the two forums split up to work in both Fuller and Island park.
On a hill covered in invasive species, students of the Kulka forum picked Dave’s Rocket and Garlic Mustard. The hours spent there cleared up a large section. By the end many of the students where having difficulty finding any more Dave’s Rocket and Garlic Mustard, going on past the section marked for them to clear even more of the area.
Lending a helping hand at the Leslie Science Center
The Thomas forum lent a helping hand on Community High’s community service day by helping out at the Leslie Science Center. Arriving at LSC at 8:30 sharp, they began the morning by clearing an area of burned and uprooted trees, branches and old stumps. With nearly all the forum present, this task was over quickly, and the group soon moved onto the next project. After moving several wheel-barrels of pebbles and small rocks into the bird cages, the Thomas forum split up into small groups to make the work easier, and give everyone a chance to do some good old community service.
The Thomas forum worked from 8:30 to 11:30, stopping only once for a snack break. Students weeded, cleared forest trails, raked, helped out in the critter room, moved dead branches, and just made themselves useful out at the Science Center. According to Anne Thomas, the forum leader, this isn’t the first time the forum has helped out there. The forum has helped out at the Leslie Science Center several times before in the past couple years, doing everything from carving pumpkins to weeding the front yard.
Growing into the spirit
Community service day barely seemed to penetrate the tired brains of the McGraw forum as they quickly climbed off the bus, realizing that we seemed to be missing a large portion of the group. When the McGraw forum arrived at the park, heading towards Leslie Science and Nature Center, cutting through the playground of Northside Elementary, sliding through a small gap in the fence and continuing to the Center, occasionally complaining of cold and how we didn’t particularly want to do community service anyway.
Upon arriving, we decided not to wait for the rest of our forum and our partner forum, and went on into the woods to begin our three hours of labor. Soon, however, we forgot all about the “work” aspect, and began yanking Garlic Mustard with zeal, hunting out and exterminating patches as we went, enjoying the simple task in spite of our earlier grumblings. Relatively early on we were joined by the rest of our group, and continued our foray, ending the day with several full bright orange bags, packed with the invasive species, and the overall feeling of accomplishment.
