During spring of 2018, GreenThumb Youth Leadership Council members came to my school to present to our school volunteering work for us. I was intrigued by this offer to volunteer for gardening because it was a WBL requirement and have gardened in the past. So I submitted the applications necessary to join the program. After a few months past, I went into the inauguration meeting for all Youth Leadership Council (YLC) members and it was pretty swell. There was refreshments, dining area, and a stage for the top leaders of the Greenthumb YLC to present slideshows. The staff at the inauguration gave me a bag, water bottle, and a few other goodies to take home with me. I met up with my group that I was going to work with for a while after the leaders formally gave speeches to us recruits. We planned out what we were going to do and gave each other our contacts to keep in touch of future updates for our volunteering work. Then came April of 2018.
Inside the inauguration building!
I did my first volunteering work at Discovery Gardens at Jamaica, New York. The first day was really a lot of hard work and so were the rest of the volunteering days. Luckily, many volunteers came to help each other do the volunteering work assigned by our leader, Ms. Vulcain. We wore gloves to protect our hands and gone to work. I picked up garbage/litter, pulled weeds, and helped built benches for the garden. The garden itself that I volunteered at was actually two separate gardens conjoined by the ownership of Ms. Vulcain. It had an area of a building and was very green surrounded by fences. There were little bugs crawling and flying everywhere in the gardens from ants to butterflies. By the time I completed my first 4 hours of volunteering work, I was fatigued. I returned the gloves back to Ms. Vulcain, went to McDonalds to grab a quick bite to eat, and headed back home to rest. For the second volunteering day, it was very similar to the first day. I wore gloves again and went to work picking up litter, weeding, and continuing to help build benches. The following volunteering days at Jamaica was a lot of work. I got to water the plants, weed, completed the building of tables and benches, paint the tables and benches, clean the garden of litter, and help other volunteers do their job. The activities were rigorously tiring but also enjoyable to do as it gives you a sense of accomplishment in your tasks in which you completed. Now by the end of my volunteering work, I have accumulated 31.5 hours in a span of 4 months ending in August 9, 2018. It was a great opportunity to have done and I would definitely recommend to others to do such that as well.
