On December 7th, 2025, AYLUS Oakland Gardens had their 208th event from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM. We partnered with the NYC Parks Department at Kissena Park, working together with Roxana, Ada, Peter, and Matias. Due to the cold weather, Roxana brought us some breakfast, consisting of croissants, hot chocolate, orange juice, or coffee, in order to warm us up and give us energy for the day.
During the event, our members split into two main groups to rake up leaves. One group stayed at the Bocce Court and the other group went over to the playground. The first group that stayed at the Bocce Court used two big blue tarps to pick up the leaves. They first lay down the tarps, then they pile leaves onto the tarp, making sure the tarp is filled. Once the tarp was filled, they lifted it up and put it in the truck bed where two members would make sure that all the leaves would be placed within the truck. After the leaves are inside the truck bed, members take the tarps again and repeat the process till the truck bed is filled. Once the bed was filled, Peter and Ada drove the truck to Cunningham Park in order to drop off the leaves so that they would be turned into mulch for further use. Then, they drove the truck back so that members could continue raking up the leaves.
The second group first started inside the playground, raking up the leaves that are around the perimeter of the playground or around any fences. Through separating into smaller groups, people with rakes were able to form piles of leaves while people with bags, leaf pickers, and shovels pack up the leaves into bags. After making sure the bags are properly filled, we carry the bags out of the playground and put it on the ground left to the entrance inside the playground. After our members finished the inside of the playground, they moved outside the playground to bag up the leaves that surrounded the playground. As they were bagging up the leaves, members noticed that the number of bags we had were running low since there are a lot of leaves, so they started moving the leaves into one big pile so that it would be quicker when using the tarps again. After the first group finished, they joined the second group and members started doing the same procedure as the first group did when cleaning up the Bocce Court.
At the end of the event, members brought their tools back to the office where everything is kept, while some stayed behind and counted how many bags there were. In total, our members cleaned up around 683 bags that are made up from 123 bags and 7 trucks, with each truck estimated to be around 80 bags each.
We would like to offer thanks to our members for all their hard work today, cleaning up a huge amount of leaves. We would also like to thank Roxana for bringing us some treats in the morning to warm us up and ready for the day as well as thanks to Ada, Peter, and Matias for their hard work in aiding us throughout the event. We are looking forward to working with them again!
Our Volunteers:
1. Jia Qi Liu (Angela): 4 hours
2. Alexander Lu : 4 hours
3. Sophia Lu : 4 hours
4. Dylan Chen : 4 hours
5. Stephanie ShiRan You : 4 hours
6. Hong Hao Liu (Alfred) : 4 hours
7. Ioknor Lin : 4 hours
8. Ioklee Lin : 4 hours
9. Sophia Xu : 4 hours
10. Anthony Xu : 4 hours
11. Ryan Zheng : 4 hours
12. Zhiheng Zhou : 4 hours
13. Jiansheng Chen : 4 hours
14. Patrick Yeung : 4 hours
15. Benny Yeung : 4 hours
16. Orick Chen : 4 hours
17. Oria Chen : 4 hours
18. Rui Zhu : 4 hours
19. Zihan Shi : 4 hours
20. Enda Zheng : 4 hours
21. Honglei Luo : 4 hours
22. Steven Zhu : 4 hours
23. Jayden Wang : 4 hours
24. Ruolin Gao : 4 hours
25. Vicki Lin : 4 hours
26. Ivan Cao : 4 hours
27. Haoze Gao : 4 hours
28. Eason Lin : 4 hours
29. Terrence Cao : 4 hours
30. Austin Li : 4 hours
31. Matthew Lin : 4 hours
32. Vincent He : 4 hours
33. Ryan Wu : 4 hours
34. Kaisa Wu : 4 hours
35. Albert Tang : 4 hours
36. Janice Ma : 4 hours
37. Nerissa Xu : 4 hours
38. Paxton Xu : 4 hours
39. Nuo Heng Chen : 4 hours
40. Nuoyan Chen : 4 hours
41. Anson Gao : 4 hours
42. Gina Gao : 4 hours
43. YiHan Lu : 4 hours
44. Tyrone Li : 4 hours
45. Fayee Chen : 4 hours
46. Evan Li : 3.5 hours
Parent Adviser Team:
Fannie Li: 5 hours
Karen Liao: 5 hours
Faye Liu: 5 hours
Report Written by: Ioklee Lin
Reviewed by: Jia Qi (Angela) Liu
