Jennifer21
Registered: July 2013
City/Town/Province: 98203
Posts: 1
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Coming Soon! Morrill Meadows’ Dog Park!
By: Jennifer
My name is Jennifer and I’m going to be a senior in this upcoming fall. I chose to do my Apprentice Ecologist project on behalf of the Nicodemus Wilderness Project because I have done community service since I was young, and I thought that it would be an excellent opportunity to help out the community. I was in an organization called Key Club at my previous high school. As a Key Club member, I had to have fifty hours of community service by the end of the year. Therefore, I did many projects throughout the school year. A project that stood out in my mind was helping build a dog park called Morrill Meadows Off-Leash Dog Park.
When my friend and I volunteered to go to the dog park to do community service, we were expecting to help to pick up garbage, but we were wrong. When we got there, we didn’t even see any garbage. It was just a big, kind of greenish (some parts in the area had grass, some didn’t) land that had an unexpected giant hole in the middle. The first thing one of the volunteers gave us was some gloves and a shovel and told us to head north. It was still foggy and the early cold morning air froze us while we were walking in the direction that we were told.
The first thing that we did was fill in the big hole in the middle with dirt. It was kind of like the same routine I did at the other parks—shovel the dirt and then put it in the garden cart, then steer the garden cart to the destination, and drop off the dirt where it was needed. It’s a very tiring process and I popped my shoulder the first time I’ve done it. It gets easier and I noticed that I built muscle from shoveling dirt in the garden cart (it’s more labor intense than it sounds). After filling in the giant hole in the middle of the park with dirt, we had to pat it so that it would be leveled with the grass level. After doing that, we had to put soil in the garden carts and fill up the whole outer area of the part with it. We had to make sure we filled the whole outer part of the park with enough soil so we can plant trees in them. After we got that part done, everyone started planting trees and pulling out weeds. The sun just had to be blazing on us when we started to plant trees. I felt like planting trees was the longest process but I met a few nice people on the way.
After finish planting all the trees, I looked around the park to see what we have accomplished. I can imagine seeing dogs, all sizes playing on the land that we just create. Just that thought kept me going while piling up the rock hard dirt and pulling those tough weeds. Just thinking how happy the dogs will be running around happily in the park makes me ecstatic. I think that it’s important to take care of parks because everybody, from children to our grandparents, including our furry animals goes to them. If the area is nice and clean, more people would come back and have a good time. I like how the park that I help create has doggy bags for free so that nobody steps on anyone else’s poop.
The project that I and many others contributed to helps benefit our community and the environment because we are helping expand and make our community into a better place, even if it’s one place at a time. Instead of building a company that gives carbon dioxide, we planted trees that take it in, so everyone has an easier time breathing in some good oxygen. My Apprentice Ecologist Project has helped to enrich my life by helping others. After helping build the dog park, I felt the greatest sense of joy knowing that I made a difference in the community. The Apprentice Ecologist Project has inspired me to continue to help out the environment and to continue to do good deeds, because hard work does pay off.
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