INTO OSU English Through Volunteering – Page 3 – Adventures in Service and Engagement in the Corvallis Community

Sunshine and Perspiration @ SAGE

By Lincoln April 5, 2016

Today’s volunteering experience was wonderful!

We visited the SAGE and helped gardeners to do some farming. After greeting each other, we started our volunteering. At first, we were divided into two groups, then we picked the farming tools, such as pitchforks and rakes, unfolded the cardboard on the ground and fanned out mulch on the cardboard. Then we dug up the roots of weeds to remove the weeds and planted money trees. The manager told us that the money trees also can help the weeds not to come back. It is a really environmentally friendly way to weed. After the farming work, the manager gave us a brief tour of the SAGE garden. We visited the children’s garden, which is fascinating and meaningful. Carrie also showed us a canopy which like a small greenhouse, planting some fruits and vegetables.

Time flew when we were having fun. One time volunteering for the SAGE is not enough. I hope I will have more opportunities to help them. Even though we did not do much farming work, I realized the concept of volunteering for this local community; that to do it is sincerely and sustainably. One thing that impacted me was the manager’s daughter. Obviously, she is more familiar with farming work than me. She was helping her mother to guide the garden even she is only a kid. And I also could see the spirit of helping others from her.

The SAGE farming work helped me to feel the value of volunteering. This is just the beginning!

More information about Corvallis SAGE garden, please check

Corvallis Environmental Center

My experience at SAGE garden: A journal

Before:

It is the second time for me to go to SAGE garden. The first experience was wonderful. It is a community garden that supplies 3-4 tons of vegetables or fruits every year to some families or organizations. And also, lots of people get benefits from SAGE garden.

SAGE garden provides many events for different groups of people. For example, there are summer camps for children, and lessons about growing plants for families. Last time, I met a nice woman who was Carrie. She bought us to cut weeds that hurt the growing of plants. The bad plants will grab nutrition that we provide for plants so that plants can not grow well.

This time I think I will enjoy this experience. I hope I can do better than last time, and help other classmates to do their work. After all, it is my second time. Maybe I will explain something for them.

After:

It was a beautiful weather. Even though I went to SAGE garden for the second time, it was a totally different experience. The first time I went there, I just cut some weeds that are not good for plants’ growing. At this time, I did the seed-tape first. This work needs patience. The seed tapes can help seeds grow easily, and also help seeds germinate.

In addition, I put seeds into soil. During this activity, I saw many slugs, which I had not seen in my first time because the season it is different. At the beginning, I was afraid of them. But It was lucky for me those slugs seemed not to move. Moreover, I weeded again, however, this time I was not doing well, due to my backache. Every time I used my power I felt uncomfortable with my back. I still tried my best to do these tasks. I hope I can help others.

As I mentioned above, the seed tape was the most interesting part of this volunteering experience. We put seeds embedded in paper. The seeds were already placed thinly along the tape. This means less time “tinning out” your rows and less seed wastage. Once the ground is prepared, the tapes are simply unraveled, cut to the desired length, laid on the soil, and covered over. Seed tapes are an efficient work saver in SAGE garden.

SAGE garden has a significant meaning for community. It can provide food for some place that need food and give people a chance to learn how to plant.

Habitat for Humanity Restore, April 2016

Students discussed homeless as a social issue in their home countries and also in the United States and critically examined its causes and effect on life in our societies. They also learn about organization like Benton Habitat for Humanity and Restore, which work to empower people to own their own homes by enlisting community support and “sweat equity” to get the job done.

Stone Soup Corvallis, April 2016

At Stone Soup Kitchen, students saw where the food grown at SAGE garden, donated in drives throughout the community, and distributed by Linn Benton Food Share and partner agencies end up: feeding the Corvallis community delicious and nutritious meals

Students Get Food Ready to Feed Families at Linn Benton Food Share, April 2016

At Linn Benton Food Share, an agency of the Oregon Food Bank, students spent hours working to ensure that food was ready to be distributed to families who needed it. In class, they learned about how the Food Bank operates, how many people are served by the bank and partner agencies like food pantries throughout the country, and how much volunteers are needed to accomplish such large projects.

Student experiences

1-Abdulla Ali from United Arab Emirates .

PRE-SERVICE

Linn Benton Food Share:

I know a bit about the Linn Benton food share that we will work with today. I heard they help people who seek emergency food, by giving them food boxes from the Oregon food bank. We will go today as group to help and support the employees and the volunteers there. We might distribute food to the people there. We will be listening to their instructions, after that we going to do what they will give us. I am looking forward to knowing deeply about Linn Benton Food share. In addition, I want to know how they are organizing their work individually and collectively. I am quite nervous about how we will mange this work successfully, because this is the first time for me and the majority of my group. However, I expect our business will be easy because we will be working as group and that will make the work lighter and faster.

Post –service

I really feel proud to have helped and supported the employees in Linn Benton Food Share. It was my second volunteering program that I have had in the United State. I was nervous but when I went there everything went well. My role there was to take the food from the donation boxes and sort them in the right place such as dry food, vegetables, fruit ,meat, beans and soup. We learned many things today. I was struggling at the beginning about how to sort the food in the right box. However, I fixed this issue when the supervisor explained to us how to divide each piece and sort it in the right box. She gave us important instructions about our business, such as: don’t sort dented cans , sort the liquid slowly because there were glass and sort the food in the right box. When we were done with this job, we moved to break the boxes down to recycle them. Finally, we boxed the food with specific weight which was 24 Grams. After that we took a tour around the store to get knowledge about the rest of the store.

Growing seeds and laying fertile ground at SAGE community garden, April 2016

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