Last month, a small group of volunteers gathered at Decker Middle School to work on the community garden. We were current YLS members, new volunteering recruits and Volunteer Project Leader students. One of the VPL leaders even invited a friend from another school to participate— as Julie commented, it truly is neat to see recruiting happening at that age!
Standing on a large rock in the middle of the Decker Community Learning Garden, Annie and the student Leaders for the project welcomed the volunteers and described our task—to continue the work begun last year by the VPL class on the Decker Middle School Garden. Volunteers quickly got to work on the various projects including: painting the sign for the Decker Community Learning Garden, building two benches, digging holes for the sign and the benches, and making bags out of old banners.
The most popular activity seemed to be the bag-making project. Julie shared this project from Keep Austin Beautiful.
This project involved donated banners, staples, and duck tape. In addition to making bags for carrying the gardening tools, nearly all of the VPL students made at least one bag to bring home or to give to a friend. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see these bags as the new “in” fashion in the Manor community.
To conclude the event at Decker Middle School, Annie made the surprise announcement that we were going to have a cartwheel contest! Congratulations Julie for winning the cartwheel contest.
After saying our goodbyes to the students from the VPL class, we ended the day at Haymaker for some regionally-inspired craft sandwiches and margaritas to celebrate National Margarita Day!!
Make sure to check out all of the amazing photos —thanks Julie for taking these!
