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. 

Just a quick update

• I've been in the woods for the past 2 weeks.
• At least I'm not in direct sun light...
• I got poison Ivy for the first time ever, it itches.
• really bad.
• I've been chainsawing...without cutting off any limbs. 
• I'm now acting TL since mine left Thursday, must admit it's a little stressful but ohwell I'm handling it.
• Only one more week here.
• Then off to Michigan.

so far during fourth round..

So for fourth round, it's not actually all in one place - it's split round. I'm in Vinton, Iowa for the first half then going to Augusta, Michigan for the last half. It's actually really nice in the way that I won't be doing ONE job for 8 weeks straight because that can get rather tiresome..not that the shorter version is any better but still. In Viton we're working with Vinton Parks and Rec. it's a really nice sponsor. I love our supivisor! The team is split in two, six working at Riverside Park clearing invasives and down/dead trees and the other half building a firepit/landscaping at Celebration park. I've been working in Riverside Park since I'm a sawyer - I've only sawed once though so doesn't make much difference. The first time I sawed, I sawed my boot a little so I pass on that job when possible. We've cleared a lot, which is really nice to see... I like seeing the difference from day to day, it's cool being able to see it go from brush/weeds to clear grass. It's really tiring work though, I'm exhausted every day after work...I've never been so tired in my life! But the days 730-4 seem short - I guess because we work so early..I don't know..not complaining just saying it's tough work and I'll be glad when we can go to Michigan. In Michigan we'll be serving as camp counselors at Lake Sherman YMCA. This is important because by having an NCCC team there the camp saves approx. 20,000 dollars in opperational dollars which allows them to continue offering the programs to schools at reduced prices they can afford. I'm really anxious to go...we get a solid week of training but still I've never really worked with kids and I'll be on my own, the team will be seperate which is also going to be hard because we're so used to being as a team. This week we did an ISP at the Sweet Corn Festivel in Cedar Rapids, it was really good. Personally I emptied trashes for four hours but surprisenly it wasn't bad at all - which gives you a hint how hard we're working during the week and how basically playing in trash is a vacation. The others also emptied trash and some cleaned up food tent areas...the people were really sweet, I loved it. So many people were interested in who we were and what we're doing..and all very appreciative of something seemingly small. It's always amazing to see people be thankful for what we're doing..because to us it's not really a huge deal..we're emptying trash, yanno? But to them it's a big deal and seeing their gratitude really makes it easier to enjoy. Tomorrow we're going to the Iowa state fair, it's the last day so it's half price! yay. Should be fun, but I'll spend the first half of the day working with my TL learning the ropes of paper work...should be...exciting? Is paper work ever fun? Oh well I don't mind it, while she's gone on vacation in a couple weeks I'm going to be responsible for the team/paper work for the team...Team Leader Brandy haha. Nothing much else going on I have two other ISP's planned with the Iowa Children's Museaum which I'm excited for..then that's all..Vinton Boomtown is next weekend which will be cool! It's a big fireworks show from what I understand. Michael and I took Monday as a personal day - we deserve it! Don't have any plans but no plans is better than working :)

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.