During Easter weekend, on April 3, 2021, the Raritan Valley Branch volunteers revived the Butterfly Park in East Brunswick with colorful wood painting and woodchip trail-paving. We once again worked with the Friends of the EB Environmental Commission.
As the weather warms up, more visitors are returning to the park. Our jobs this time were to add more enjoyment for the visitors by paving the trail with woodchips and painting the kiosk at the park entrance and benches throughout the park. We were excited to meet the challenges of the jobs and did our homework ahead of time. On the day of the jobs, volunteers were split into 2 groups, with one group handling the woodchips to pave the trail and the other group tackling the painting task. The trail-paving crew transported woodchips onto the trail with a wheelbarrow, covering the dirt trail with woodchips making it safer and more convenient to hike. Shovel by shovel, the paved trail gradually extended under our feet. At the same time, the painting crew applied their artistic talents. The mildew-growing, distressed benches and kiosk were transformed into eye-catching art works. The vibrant red with decorative designs on the kiosk gives a warm and stunning welcome to the park visitors, while the spring-colored benches invite the hikers to sit and feel the serenity among flying butterflies. What would be a better spring gift to the community than the spruced-up Butterfly Park for people to visit and heal under the pandemic?! What would be a more gratifying way to spend the Easter weekend than being a part of this?! “Decorated” with paint/wood chips on our clothes/hands, we left the park tired but happy, set to return soon to complete the rest of the painting and trail-paving.
Volunteers: Benjamin Hong (3 hrs), Tarun Sivakumar (3 hrs), Amy Xu (3 hrs), Raymond Hu (3 hrs), Xinning Lucy Liu (3 hrs), Matthew Ding (2 hrs), Albert He (2 hrs), Jason Liu (3 hrs), Kevin Xu (3 hrs), Alicia Xu (3 hrs), Jessica Hong (3 hrs), Kaelyn Ho (2 hrs), Kevin Ho (2 hrs), Kyle Xu (2 hrs), Alvin Zhang (2 hrs), Emma Zhang (2 hrs), Chloe Zhou (2 hrs), Ethan Zhou (2 hrs)
