Arriving at St. John’s Abby Arboretum was an exciting adventure for Oak 3. Upon arrival Tom, the sponsor, showed the team round campus and issued keys to the apartments. Rules and regulations were also briefly covered on the first night. The apartments Oak 3 lives in are Earth Homes which means they’re partially underground and require minimum heating and cooling. The following day Tom provided a thorough tour of the facilities and explained the organization to the team. The campus of St. John’s University is like a small city which is self-sustaining. The campus has on site a post office, power plant, fire station, security, pottery studio, art museum, wood shop, and much more. After the tour the team had the opportunity to give a briefing to the staff on AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps. The team went over policies and procedures as well as representative roles. The staff was very accommodating and introduced the media reps to the media representative on site as well as asking how they could assist in other representative roles. During the tour Tom pointed out several points of service learning to the group. For example, the campus is home to Minnesota’s oldest planted trees. The monks on campus also serve a vital role in the preservation of not only the campus but also the arboretum. Oak 3’s site supervisor, Brother Walter, is a monk who helped the team learn the ropes of fence building and made sure the team had everything they needed. When Oak 3 was introduced to the Oak forest, Tom went over how the forest is rated as “Excellent” then went on to explain the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) rating system. There are certain qualifications that forests must meet to obtain the title of excellent so the monks work hard to maintain that quality. Oak 3’s role in the arboretum was to construct a 9 ft deer fence enclosing 19 acres of Oak forest. The training provided were: tool safety, a review of personal protective equipment, instruction on how to construct the fence, and an overview of safety procedures for the arboretum. During tool safety the Vehicle Safety and Tools officers went over the policy with Brother Walter to ensure the team was adhering to policy set forth by the sponsor. Instruction on how to build the fence was hands on with the team, first Brother Walter and his assistant Adam put up a post and showed the correct method then the team went on to do the remaining with the assistance of Brother Walter and Adam. For activities the service learning imitators went over how life after AmeriCorps is important to plan with the team and facilitated the completion of the Life After AmeriCorps worksheet for the Individual Learning Plan part 2. On the first day of work Brother Walter asked if it was okay if we did a reflection on what the team thought so far and how the team thought the project would go overall. As another one of the reflection activities the team started working on a reflection that will be year long. The team was instructed to create a “debrief” for their friends and family to use when they go home. The debrief would include knowledge, skills, and abilities gained at the worksite. To make it a little more fun the team could add in fun facts or odd quantifiables if they wanted to, an example would be “how many stir-fry meals the team cooked.” During the last week of work Tom shared a presentation on Oak regeneration to the team and explained why it was important to save such trees. Oak regeneration is difficult and must be intentional. Regeneration doesn’t just happen on its own so the arboretum took the initiative to build a fence. A 9 foot fence has shown to be 98% effective in keeping deer out of the forest. The arboretum had a “testing area” fenced in and the forest enclosed has flourished since the construction of the fence. The presentation also included the history of the forest the team was working in it’s been a tree farm since 1950 and FSC certified since 2002. FSC certification means that the forest is sustaining, wood taken from the forest isn’t causing a decrease in the forest itself. The trick is to never take more than the forest can produce and the arboretum makes it a priority that over foresting doesn’t happen. There are 700 acres of Oak on the arboretum with 4 species of Oaks most of which are 100-145 years old. It’s important to regenerate the Oak forest because acorns produced are a staple in the diet of the wild life. Also Oaks produce very desirable lumber. Nationally Oak acreage is declining because harvesting and other losses exceed growth by 30%. Oak 3 really enjoyed learning about not only the trees they were giving a chance to grow but also the namesake of their unit. The team had many points throughout the week where the importance of the project and work performed that day was discussed. The team constantly stayed very connected with the importance of the project and enthusiastic to learn more about what they were accomplishing. The sponsor really helped the team with the presentation he gave, it brought all the hard work put in back home and gave meaning to digging all the holes. During the work week the team had opportunities to work with or around the Monks who were the supervisors which gave the team a chance to learn about the culture of Monks and who exactly they were serving. Being in contact with the people the team was serving really kept the project near and dear.