Guest Bloggers: Margaret Arnold & Chloe Aulani Buenrostro of Seattle University

Chloe Aulani Buenrostro, a freshman at Seattle U, clears a garden plot of amaranth in early fall. Chloe is a originally from Hawaii and volunteered last quarter at the Danny Woo Community Garden.

From top left clockwise: Moises Hernandez-Aviles, Margaret Arnold, and Chloe Aulani Buenrostro of Seattle University.

 Maggie and Chloe’s Experience at the Danny Woo Community Garden  

We are two of the community-based learning students from Seattle University. We have been coming to volunteer in the garden for the past 5 weeks. Throughout these 5 weeks we completed a lot of tasks and learned a lot of useful skills. This opportunity has been extremely rewarding providing us with a place to give back, forgot about the worries of daily life. We both have had similar experiences in the garden however there are different things we have noticed and enjoyed about working here.

Chloe’s experience:

When I first visited the garden prior to coming to the orientation I was slightly surprised how it was truly within the community. It is open to the public and there are often people from within the neighborhood that come to volunteer. I was also able to learn more about the kinds of people that use the Danny Woo Garden. Most of the gardeners at the community garden speak little to no English. Although I knew this beforehand, it was interesting to encounter this firsthand. I recall a situation at the garden, where an elderly woman who only spoke what I assume to be Mandarin was trying to change the time she takes care of the chicken from Sunday to Wednesday. With her she had her son, who also spoke broken English in order to translate for her. Lizzy, who was taking us through the orientation had to try and resolve this issue even though she did not speak the language which I found to be very interesting. I also learned about the history of the garden and how it came to be as well as more on the process of obtaining a plot of land in order to garden. A surprising fact that I had learned from Lizzy is that the waiting list is about three years long in order to obtain a plot of land in the garden.    

The Danny Woo garden is very significant to its gardeners. It promotes both physical and mental health for those who live within the Chinatown-International District community. With majority of its gardeners being elder, it is vital that these residents get the psychical health they need. Not only does it maintain their physical health by allowing them to get out of their apartments, it promotes health for their own family too. Lizzy had mentioned how there is really no other green gardening space within the community except for the community garden, so it is difficult to get affordable fresh fruits and vegetables elsewhere. It also promotes mental health as it can lessen stress or depression. Although the Danny Woo Garden is a very important part of the gardener’s day, the state of the garden is not up to par according to Lizzy. I could see evidence of this through waste scattered throughout the garden, disorganized storage, and unkept lots. However, with the help of everyone in the garden it’s improving!    

A significant challenge within the Danny Woo Community Garden that I learned about while volunteering here is the risk of erosion. The landscape of the Danny Woo Garden increases the risk of soil erosion because it is built on a hill. The weather is a major factor in contributing to the erosion. In order to solve this challenge, we (the volunteers) have been using wheelbarrows to move mulch from the mulch pile at the far end of the garden and distributing it all over the garden. This will also further prevent erosion from happening. Although we are completing these tasks in order to help prevent erosion, it is still a problem that exists if we do not take more preventive care similar to the ones described. Other tasks that we have been working on includes organizing the tool shed and also assisting in building a retaining wall using cement block and glue. We have also learned about composting and the significance of the worm bin. If the compost bin gets hot enough and has the right ratio of carbon and nitrogen, it will be able to serve as excellent fertilizer for the garden. As a whole my experience at the garden was both positive and enlightening and I am thankful that I was able to choose Danny Woo as my service learning site.

Maggie’s experience:

If I had to choose a few words to describe my experience it would be physical and therapeutic. We volunteer as stewardess which mostly consist of using physical labor in order to complete the assigned tasks. This is a very hands on job that allows me to focus on the volunteering instead of thinking about everything else I need to do like studying and homework. It gives me a release from the harder parts of life for two hours once a week So far, the tasks that we have completed are feeding the chicken, putting mulch down, cleaning the shed, weeding the stairs, moving bricks for the retaining wall, turning compost, and harvesting worms. All of these jobs require hard work and getting your hands dirty. During our orientation, we started off right away working in the garden by feeding the chickens and giving them water. We also started putting down the mulch to emphasize the pathways and to help with stability of the garden on the slope. The next visit to the garden we continued laying down the mulch my part of the job was to shovel the mulch into the wheelbarrow for the others to take back to the garden to lay it down.

On our third visit Chloe and I were in charge of organizing the tool shed in the middle of the garden. This was a critical job because it allows for the workers and gardeners to find and safely get the tools that were needed for certain tasks. We organized the shelves, took out the trash and unnecessary items, and put the tools, such as the shovels and rakes in the same locations. On our most recent visit to the garden we spent the afternoon harvesting worms from the compost bin closest to the chicken coop. This is one of two compost bins in the garden that had worms and Lizzy wanted to start filling the other compost bins in order to produce more organic material. We took out some of the worms in order to transplant them to a new bin that they could repopulate and then allow us to start another compost bin till they all were full of worms. Each of these jobs required us to lift heavy items or get down and involved with the plants and dirt. I knew when I signed up for this location in class  that I would constantly have something to do and be able to forget about my troubles while I was there. This job is definitely tiring from all the work that is being done but I really enjoy getting to work with the worms, chicken, and cleaning the shed in order to make the Danny Woo Community Garden more productive and efficient. This experience is very uplifting for me knowing that I can take some time out of my day to help others in the community as well as helping my own health

Overall our experience at the Danny Woo Garden has allowed us to open up new perspectives and learn what it truly means to be in a community. We were able to learn numerous aspects about the garden and gardening in general in the short amount of time we have volunteered here. Volunteering at the Danny Woo Community Garden has been a positive experience and we could not have asked for a better service-learning site.