On Wednesday, July 9th, from 9 am to 11:30 am, our branch hosted our 170th event, held outside The Old Flushing Friends Quaker Meeting House, with Maureen Reagan and members of the Rain Garden Stewardship such as Patrick O’Conner and Steven Melrick, who taught us about rain gardens and about the stewardship program run by the DEP.
As the event started, Patrick O’Connor from the program gave us a description about how the rain gardens functioned. Essentially, it is a hole filled with soil, which allows runoff water to seep in. If a rain garden is overfilled, the water flows outwards, typically by a spillway. Using this method is a great source of utilizing rainwater for plants and small trees. Although, when it doesn’t rain, the stewards have to help out in watering the rain gardens. Additionally, the stewards also have to worry about the amount of litter that is thrown out on the rain gardens every day.
We started to work outside of the Quaker house, where Steven Melnick gave us instructions to clean the sidewalks that were full of trash and litter. He helped us with weeding, cleaning up the litter, and cutting the tree. We used grabbers and garbage bags to pick up the trash, rakes to rake up the leaves and excess weeds, and trowels to weed the grass supplied by Maureen. Later during the event, while we were working, workers from a nearby store called “Sweet Cake” noticed our work and decided to generously give us free bubble tea to thank us for our service in bettering the community. It was a very special occurrence for us, as an experience like this has never happened to our branch. We were all very thankful for the free drinks, and the workers were very respectful to us. Near the end of the event, we worked on picking up the litter inside the rain gardens, and the stewards told us to not step inside the rain gardens, as it would compact the soil, making it harder to flow through.
Throughout this event, we learned about the rain gardens and how to take care of them, how the Rain Garden Stewardship Program can really affect our environment, and how these surroundings can benefit from these programs. We would like to say thank you to all the people who participated in this event, as well as Patrick O’Conner, Steven Melnick, Maureen Reagan, and Sweet Cake for aiding us during the event.
Our volunteers:
1. Eason Lin : 2.5 hours
2. Ivan Cao : 2.5 hours
3. Eric Zheng : 2.5 hours
4. Terrence Cao : 2.5 hours
5. Dylan Chen : 2.5 hours
6. Ricky Song : 2.5 hours
7. Tian Xiang Ding : 2.5 hours
8. Kaisa Wu : 2.5 hours
9. YuYan Fan : 2.5 hours
10. Zihan Shi : 2.5 hours
11. Opal Tsai : 2.5 hours
12. Shihao Li : 2.5 hours
13. Alfred Liu : 2.5 hours
14. Luke Chen : 2.5 hours
15. Vincent He : 2.5 hours
16. Brandon Lin : 2.5 hours
17. Aiden Lin : 2.5 hours
18. Zhuoning Li : 2.5 hours
19. Ian Lee : 2.5 hours
20. Sabrina Gao : 2.5 hours
21. Sophia Gao : 2.5 hours
22. Derrick Gao : 2.5 hours
23. Stephanie You : 2.5 hours
24. Victor Tu : 2.5 hours
25. Evan Li : 2.5 hours
26. Liam Cheung : 2.5 hours
27. Sophia You : 2.5 hours
28. Selena You: 2.5 hours
29. Sophia Xu : 2 hours
30. Runyi Liu : 2 hours
Parent Adviser Team:
Fannie Li: 8 hours
Karen Liao: 8 hours
Faye Liu: 8 hours
Report Written by: Aiden Lin
Reviewed by: Jia Qi (Angela) Liu
