Vinton Parks and Recreation

This round Oak 3 is working with Vinton Parks and Recreation in Vinton, Iowa. Upon arriving the team met with the sponsor, Duane, and site supervisors, Brian and Alan. Duane gave a short introduction to the staff and facilities. The Vinton Parks and Recreation department (VPRD) offers the community facilities for recreation, which is in action year round. The community of Vinton supports the VPRD very strongly with volunteerism and financial assistance. One example would be members of the community donated money to VPRD to purchase the skating rink when the popular attraction almost went under financially a few years ago. The VPRD owns and maintains over 100 acres of park area in the bedroom community of Vinton. Being a bedroom community means that most people in the area commute to work and only live in Vinton. The main employers in Vinton are the hospital and the education systems. Back when Vinton was flooded a few homes were taken out and were in such condition it wasn’t feasible to repair or rebuild so VPRD has developed these lands into public areas, which the community can use at any time, one area which was badly hit was the land on which Celebration Park now stands.

The team was split into two groups assigned to various tasks most of the time, the first group worked at River Side Park where they cleared the park of undergrowth and downed or dead trees with Brian. Brian provided a walk through tour of the area and explanation of why the park needed to be cleared. The park was hit by a windstorm in 2011 that downed and damaged many trees in the area, some of which are still obstructing usage of the park. The park provides the community with areas to use for recreation activities but with the downed trees the area had become unsafe for public usage. In addition to safety concerns the park was an eye sore for the community. An almost immediate positive from the removing of debris and undergrowth is improved quality of the disk golf course. This is important because there is a disk golf tournament coming up in September.

Brian is a one man show who has little help from volunteers and a small number of employees under him. Most employees of VPRD are seasonal; there are only a few permanent employees one of which is Brian.

The other part of the team worked in Celebration Park with Alan, another permanent staff member of VPRD. This portion of the team worked on landscaping the park as well as constructing a fire pit. As aforementioned the park is built on land that homes once stood on before the flood. The park serves as a symbol of the community’s resilience after such a disaster. By partaking in the construction of this park Oak 3 had a hand in building a symbol of hope for the community of Vinton.  Interaction with the community of Vinton on a more personal level really helped in tying the team to Vinton in a more permanent way. Living in a community is one thing but working with the community members to provide services to others in the area really gave the team a personal connection to the area. This connection served as motivation to working hard to provide the best possible work to the community that has welcomed NCCC with open arms.

 For reflections the Service Learning Initiators (SLI) facilitated one reflection before turning it over to the team for a round robin. The first week the team got together and discussed safety from the first week that they thought was important to communicate to those who maybe hadn’t done the same type of work. Everyone communicated via drawings; the team was instructed to draw a “warning label” for a task they’d been doing the previous week. Some examples included: sawyer safety, personal protective equipment usage, and hydration rules. The second reflection was led by Michael and Caitlin in a red robin fashion. Their activity was a game of charades in which members of the team received names of previous supervisors/sponsors they had to act out. After the members finished acting and the name was guessed the other members named off some things they learned from said sponsor/supervisor. The next reflection was a game of Triva led by the SLI’s, the week previous to the activity SLI’s mentioned seemingly random facts about VPRD to the team which they were then tested on in the activity. The game was an incentive to learn more about the sponsor the team was serving and led to a deeper understanding on what exactly VPRD does and where they came from. As the last reflection the SLIs sent out random facts about VPRD throughout the week and at the end of the week there was a “game night” involving the facts. Some of the questions were in the form of Family Feud while others were just typical trivia.

There were some difficulties for some team members finding the meaning behind the project in which case the team took a small break from their work to discuss what exactly was going on with the project. The most important aspect that motivated the team was the fact they were in Vinton. The SLI’s reminded the team of the importance of serving the community that houses the NCCC campus, without that community support of NCCC the campus could be moved to a different location. It was decided that it was important for the team to work as hard as possible to give as much as they could to the community that is nothing but accepting and welcoming to the corps. Overall the team moral towards service learning did struggle during times but it always found its way back to the positive side of things. Keeping the team involved in the planning on activities and engaged in serving learning really helped keep the team working towards the end goal. The activity that involved sending out texts periodically with facts really helped the team, serving as a reminder of what they’re working for throughout the day.