This is the 54th event held by AYLUS Oakland Gardens on Saturday, March 16th, 2024. AYLUS Oakland Gardens went to Crocheron Park to finish what we didn’t finish last time. However, Dana was only here to help us set up, as he went to Central Park to participate in the St. Patrick’s Day parade. Thank you Dana! To make up for Dana’s absence, Jessica and Gene were here to help and supervise us.
Our members were very excited to finish the work that we had left over. We had a lot of fun doing it last time. During this event, our top priority was to cut all the vines at the North End fence at Crocheron Park. It took us almost two hours. To make it easier, we divided our group into age groups. The high school students used big trimmers to cut off parts of the top of the vines and separate them for the middle schoolers to rip off. Then they threw it on the ground and let the elementary schoolers pick them up and put it in wheelbarrows. Finally a few high and middle school students went to bring these vines to a place where the park workers would pick them up to be turned into wood chips. We put these on the grass and not the road as we don’t know when the park workers would pick up the vines. We do not want anyone to trip on them.
We raked sweetgum seed pods to use to block grass from growing in specific areas. We wanted to stop the lawnmowers from going near there, as it could hit the trees and damage it. Furthermore, we wanted the grass to grow in some other places to make it look nice. The sweetgum balls also were used as mulch for the crabapple and the dogwood trees at the North part of the park. The hard part wasn’t raking the seed pods, but the transportation. We had to go downhill and back up with heavy wheelbarrows. The members who were moving the wheelbarrows complained about how hard it was, but they still did their job. We’d like to give them big thanks.
In the end, we made sure that every tool that we used was put back in the shed. Some of the residents thanked us as they were grateful for our help for the park. They were especially surprised and grateful that the young kids were already working to help.
Our volunteers:
Sophia ShiHan You : 3 hours
Stephanie ShiRan You: 3 hours
Jia Qi Liu (Angela) Liu: 3 hours
Hong Hao (Alfred) Liu: 3 hours
Sophia Lin: 3 hours
Iokseng Lin: 3 hours
Ioknor Lin: 3 hours
Iokting Lin: 3 hours
Elvin Huang: 3 hours
Sophia Li: 3 hours
Darren Li: 3 hours
Zihao Wang: 3 hours
Vicki Lin: 3 hours
Evaline Yuel: 3 hours
Austin Yuel: 3 hours
Ryan Wu: 3 hours
Brandon Lin: 3 hours
Aiden Lin: 3 hours
Hannah Zheng: 3 hours
Thomas Liang: 3 hours
William Liang: 3 hours
Maggie Liu: 3 hours
Queena Li: 3 hours
Matthew Lin: 2.5 hours
Runyi Liu: 2 hours
Huaiqian Liu: 2 hours
Report by: Hong Hao (Alfred) Liu
Reviewed by: Jia Qi Liu (Angela)