On July 2nd, 2024, AYLUS Oakland Gardens held its 80th event at Crocheron Park. This time, we were accompanied by Jessica Burke, the founder of Friends of Crocheron & John Golden Park, volunteers dedicated to maintaining the park. During this event, we removed weeds, cleaned up litter, and watered garden beds.
Jessica was a former student of PS041, a public school located directly next to the park. At a young age, she was inspired by her science teacher, Mrs. Cilmi, who grew her interest in plants and nature. In fact, the garden beds that we would be working with were named after this very science teacher!
After transporting our tools from the shed to the garden beds, we split our members into three groups. The first group consisted of younger members, aged 12 and younger. Jessica gave them a brief description of the weeds found in the garden beds and how to extract them. She also passed around “cheat sheets”, showcasing the differences between plants and weeds, despite them looking alike. These weeds are invasive species that negatively affect the milkweed plants in the beds. Milkweed plants are widely known for their incredible ability to pollinate, which is why many pollinators, such as monarch butterflies, are heavily reliant on them.
Our objective was to use garden hand shovels to dig up the roots of the weeds. It is important that the entire root is dug up; otherwise, our efforts would have been wasted as the weeds would regrow. Besides the milkweed plants, everything within a 1 ft. distance from a fence was dug up and collected by some of the older kids, who would put the weeds into large paper bags. We would eventually come back later to give the fences around the beds a new paint job.
A handful of our older kids were tasked with removing litter around the park. Those with grabbers would pick up any trash they saw lingering in the park fields, and other members held up clear bags to collect the trash. Although this park regularly received visitors, it was, for the most part, clean and didn’t have any noticeable amounts of trash. Nonetheless, we managed to purify the park of bottle caps, cigarette butts, and even cannabis wrappers. After our members finished cleaning up the park, they moved on to the next task, watering the garden beds.
Since there was no nearby water source around the beds, we had to find a way to provide a sustainable amount of water for the milkweed plants to prevent dehydration. Following Jessica’s example, we transported wagons, cartons, and buckets to the other side of the park, where they would be filled up with water from both outdoor and indoor faucets. After everything was filled to the brim, we carefully brought all the containers back to the garden beds, where the cartons and buckets were used to generously water the milkweed plants. To prevent excess trips back and forth, the wagons were located next to the watering sites so that the buckets could be readily refilled with water.
We finished off our afternoon event with the entire garden bed rid of weeds and watered. All of the tools and wagons were collected and brought back to the shed, where they would be safely stored to be used in a future event.
We would like to thank Jessica for being the sole park worker to accompany us throughout the event. Thank you for letting us work with you and help you honor the legacy of your former mentor. We would also like to thank our parent advisor team and all the members who gave up their afternoons to help polish the plant beds and preserve the park. We eagerly anticipate what Friends of Crocheron & John Golden Park have in store for us next time!
Our volunteers:
Hong Hao Liu : 2 hours
Sophia ShiHan You : 2 hours
Stephanie ShiRan You : 2 hours
Anthony Lin : 2 hours
Brandon Lin : 2 hours
Aiden Lin : 2 hours
Ricky Song : 2 hours
Ryan Wu : 2 hours
Naomi Luo : 2 hours
Albert Tang : 2 hours
Zhengyilan Fang : 2 hours
Shiqi Zheng : 2 hours
Sophia Lin : 2 hours
Mandy Lin : 2 hours
Sophia Gao : 2 hours
Derrick Gao : 2 hours
Aaron Shi : 2 hours
Sabrina Gao : 2 hours
Patrick Yeung : 2 hours
Benny Yeung : 2 hours
Ioklee Lin : 2 hours
Iokseng Lin : 2 hours
Ioknor Lin : 2 hours
Iokting Lin : 2 hours
Jia Qi Liu : 2 hours
Songen Yang : 2 hours
Darren Li : 2 hours
Austin Li : 2 hours
Tian Xiang Ding : 2 hours
Austin Yuel : 2 hours
Evaline Yuel : 2 hours
Patrick Guan : 1 hour
Parent Adviser Team:
Cui Fang Li (Fannie): 3 hours
Teng Fei Liu (Faye): 3 hours
Hsinhui Liao (Karen): 3 hours
Report written by: Brandon Lin
Reviewed by: Jia Qi (Angela) Liu
