My final post! For this one, I’d like to address and discuss the reason behind these blog posts, the service, and the internal research report: English 108. I was initially hesitant about doing a service-based English class, but I’m glad I did and it turned out very well. I chose it over English 106 because it only met 3 days a week and I made the right decision. I’ve never been a huge fan of community service, but the class was so much more than that.  The discussions in class were my favorite part of the course. Cody had discussions, videos, readings, etc. that were relevant to present day issues. It was very informative and I always felt like I learned and took something away from the discussion after each class. Another reason I enjoyed the discussions was that Cody was involved yet didn’t command them. He was simply a part of them and always let people voice their opinions or concerns. This laid back style of discussion worked very well for me and I’m sure for many others in the class. Most of our other classes have lectures where it is just that. We are lectured for an hour and take notes and then leave. But in English 108, we actively participated, and because of that, information actually stuck. We learned things that we could apply to our lives, not just for tests for the semester. Cody also brought up interesting topics that challenged our previous lines of thinking. He helped us become critical readers and taught us how to be educated consumers. I feel like the class was more than just learning for a semester; it was learning for life. Thank you, Cody, for your style of teaching. I know I took a lot away from that class. Even though you took attendance, I still wanted to come to class. That is not something to be taken lightly for college classes either. Keep up the good work!

For this post, I will talk about other people doing service for the Nature Reserve. A few days ago, my friend and I went to back to meet with Dan for him to sign off on our hours. We met him in a different area of the reserve, and there were about 30 other people there with equipment and trees. We talked to him for a bit and it turns out that Starbucks planned on having a manager’s meeting at the reserve. Managers from Starbucks from the Indianapolis area all the way to the West Lafayette area were there. They asked if there was any service they could do because they were interested in doing a service project. They were put on the duty of planting trees along the edge and grassy area surrounding the bog. It was nice to see commitment to service from a large corporation. I never would really think of Starbucks workers as the kind of people that actively look for service projects, so I was definitely taken by surprise. It seems that the Nature Reserve is a popular place for service. The area adjacent to where the Starbucks managers were working were areas with wooden poles that had the tips spray painted blue. I asked Dan what the meaning of them was and he said that later in the week, kindergartners from a nearby school were planning on coming out and helping plant trees. It was refreshing to know that all demographics helped out at the reserve and cared about its maintenance. It’s a beautiful area that no doubt requires a lot of upkeep. It was nice to see the community reaching out in multiple ways to help out in any way they could. Hopefully the reserve will continue to receive volunteers and flourish.

In this blog post, I’d like to address some areas of improvement and suggestions I have for my service partner. As you already know, I spread mulch at the Celery Bog Nature Reserve with my friend. They gave us a wheelbarrow, pitchfork, and hoe to spread it. The system they had set up worked perfectly fine, it just wasn’t that efficient. Now I’m not complaining, because having to make more trips took up more time and thus required less strenuous work. However having even a second wheelbarrow would have essentially doubled our work output. The thing is, loading the wheelbarrow, dumping it, and spreading the mulch didn’t take that long at all. A majority of the time was spent walking from the mulch pile down the trails and back. If we were to have a second wheelbarrow, we would have spread twice the mulch in only a little over the same amount of time. We still got the job done; it was just tedious because we kept having to go back and forth many times. Another thing I noticed about lining the trails with mulch is the distance keeps getting farther and farther. We started at the beginning of the trail and worked our way down. The thing is, the more work we did, the farther we had to walk in between loading and dumping the mulch. For this reason, the walking distance and time required between loads kept increasing. I think the simplest and cheapest fix for this issue would just be to have a second wheelbarrow. Other than that, the system they had set up was pretty straightforward. There were no other issues I had and it was an overall enjoyable experience. 

For this blog post, I’d like to discuss how my group’s internal research report is coming. We met last Wednesday to agree on the format and direction of the paper, and again this past Sunday to combine our parts. I couldn’t make the Sunday meeting so I emailed my other groups members my part. It has been a little difficult to work on the report during dead week because everyone has been busy, but our group has managed. Even though we haven’t and won’t meet before we turn it in, I think our communication through text and email has been great. We have exchanged parts and ideas and were open to criticism and change. Our group worked very well together; everyone fulfilled his obligation most always by the time we set. Even though our paper isn’t pertaining to the service or service partner that I was with specifically, it’s still been a nice learning experience for me. We focused on the employee retention problem for non-profit organizations. Each group member chose an aspect of the problem and wrote an appropriate solution pertaining to the part. I think the problem we addressed is very important for all organizations, especially non-profits. For this reason, we made it flexible enough to be applied to various situations. Overall, I think the paper turned out great. Normally I don’t like writing papers as a substitute for finals, but working in groups made it easier. Having the work load split up between 3 people made it much less intimidating. Also, having other members in the group to bounce thoughts and ideas off of was helpful. We had each member work on a different solution, so there are 3 different points of view on how to solve the same problem. Approaching the problem from different angles makes it easier to solve.

Well it’s official, I am done with my 30 service hours! I went back to Celery Bog Nature Reserve and finished them up earlier this week. If any of you plan on going out to check out the area, make sure you take the trail that goes to the dock overlooking the bog. There is definitely mulch lining that path, and I am proud of it. It was nice being able to physically see my progress while I was doing the service. Even though there is still a mighty pile of mulch in the parking lot, I am content with my contribution. Hopefully they’ll get more volunteers to continue to work. There are a bunch of different trails all around the reserve. There’s a little park and bird watching area as well. If you go inside the building, you’ll notice it’s like a little museum of the wildlife and plant life of the area. There is an area enclosed in glass that shows a portion of the wildlife with descriptions and information. It is generally just a cool area. Dan said that students sometimes go to the bird watching area to either watch and study the birds or just to do homework. It’s a nice quiet place that would be perfect for either. It’s also a popular place for people to bring their kids or to jog. We saw many people doing various activities while we were there. Looking back, I am very lucky to have stumbled upon this place, not only for the flexibility of the service I was doing, but also for discovering a new, interesting area. Most of all, I am very glad to be done with service hours. Not to say that I don’t enjoy giving back to the community, but it is just a weight lifted off my shoulders.

This is a long overdue update of my current service. I was interested in finishing up my remaining hours of service doing environmental work, so I emailed a few local service partners. An employee of the Celery Bog Nature Reserve, which is just north of campus, emailed me back and explained that they needed mulch put down on their trails. I have a friend outside of this English class who also needs to do community service, and we decided to do the mulch laying. I set up a meeting with Dan so he could show us what exactly we were supposed to do. Once we got to the nature reserve, we immediately saw a huge pile of mulch in the parking lot. Dan showed us where the wheelbarrow and pitchfork and hoe were. Those were the tools that we’d be using to lay down the mulch. He then took us along one of the trails and showed us where we were to lay it. The nature reserve is actually a very cool place; I’d definitely recommend going to check it out. It’s very peaceful. Along one of the trails there is a dock that looks out on the lake and has a few benches. There is also a panoramic camera in that area that can be remotely accessed and controlled to view the lake. If you aren’t familiar with the area, it’s definitely worth paying a visit. After he showed us what needed to be done, he just told us we could spread it any time we wanted, which was really nice. My friend and I have gone out a few times, usually in the evening when it’s cooler, and worked for 1-2 hours. I like the flexibility a lot; it makes it much easier to do the service when we are free to decide when it gets done.

Hello again my faithful readers. This is the first week I can actually reflect on service that I've done! I was home in Indianapolis this past week for spring break and I knocked out a good chunk of the community service for the class. I actually did more hours than I had initially planned, but that's definitely a good thing considering how late I got started. The service didn't take that much out of my break either. I learned how to utilize my time very efficiently. I did most of the service beginning in the late morning so that I was free for the rest of the day. A couple of my friends came and helped me on some of the days and that made it much easier. The place I volunteered was at the Harrison retirement community. It is essentially a hotel-like community for old people. Now I can't say that I had many fun jobs, but I still had an overall enjoyable experience. For a few of the hours I picked up trash along the perimeter of the building. Now some of you might be cringe at the thought of this, but fear not! Since it was a retirement community, I asked of they had one of those grabby things you see on tv, you know for old people reaching around places. Turns out they did and I got to use one of those. The Harrison also had activities that I helped out with by passing out drinks or cookies or just by being an extra set of hands. I also had to take out trash and move around boxes of stuff. Another job I had was stocking shelves of said stuff. It was a lot of work but like I said it was made easier by my friends. I still don't necessarily care for old people, but at least I did my part to help them. Most of them were very nice too. All in all, it was a success, and I'm glad I have a good chunk of service behind me.