Santa Clara University

I usually work at the Community Garden weekly. I know a bit about gardening from working in the garden at my house, but it is interesting to learn things from the employees at BUG. It's exciting to be a part of this project in its first year. It is just getting off the ground and yet it is progressing so quickly. I cannot wait to see where it will be by the end of my time here.

Yesterday (Thursday, February 25) I helped set up for and attended the Focus the Nation panel hosted by Green Club. I enjoyed what the panelists had to say--and there were definitely some moments that I thought were very funny, interesting, enlightening.

One panelist talked about putting less of a need on personal transportation by emphasizing the use of public transportation--making it more accessible to everybody to just hop on a bus or jog across the street. This hit me a lot because I just had a talk with one of my best friends about this. He lives in San Francisco now for college and he told about how in SF, he uses public transportation and is willing to walk 7 blocks to get where he needs to go, however, when he's home in San Jose, driving is his preferred mode of transportion. Even if it's just to get somewhere a few blocks from his house! I'm not going to say I am not guilty of this, but I would really like to make a switch in my life to going carless sometime in my life. Maybe not now as a college student with jobs and a very awkward schedule, but in the future, yes!

2.24.10 Spoke to people about the RLC energy challenge and the Save Rave at the Benson low carbon dinner. My biggest surprise was how many people are very uniformed. Some people knew a little information, but there were some who just had no idea what was going on in the community.

I did a waste characterization earlier this year in the fall. We went through Swig's trash and sorted what we could. As weird as it sounds, I have always wanted to go through the trash and see what people throw away when instead it could have be recycled, reused, composted. I was also lucky enough to volunteer at the end of the day as the group I was in weighed the bags and got to really see the outcome of the project.

It was my intention to go volunteer at Bronco Urban Garden, but it was raining and wet on Sunday, so those plans fell through. Tomorrow afternoon, I will be tabling for GREEN Club in support of the Focus the Nation event that is happening tomorrow night.

At the Forge Community Garden, I've been able to spend some hours learning about different organic gardening methods and take part in the development of this new project. I've learned about everything from double-digging to fruit tree grafting to the process of composting and different types of compost. It's been a lot of fun -- I've been able to feed off of the enthusiasm of the three AmeriCorps volunteers.