On June 7th, 2025, AYLUS Oakland Gardens held its 162th event at the Kissena Park Lake Shore. We were accompanied by Park Supervisor Roxana and other park workers. During the event, we worked along the shoreline, trimming trees and clearing our invasive plants. This event lasted from 8:30 AM to 12:00 PM, and around 50 members showed up to this event.
Before our event began, our members gathered together near the Kissena Park Public Bathroom. There, our parent advisor team split our members into five groups. Each group would be distributed tools, with loppers for high school students and shovels for middle school students. When a group was prepared with their tools, Roxana guided them down from the general area to lake level.
The shoreline area was alongside both the lake and the park track. It had been wrapped around with caution tape to avoid public exposure and injury. Following Roxana’s instructions, our groups entered into the area and carefully began our assignments. The high school students would use loppers to trim out large branches on the outskirts of the shoreline, while the middle school and elementary school students focused on locating plants and weeds to remove from the area using shovels and gloves. However, our groups still had to be careful of any poisonous plants lingering with the weeds.
During the event, Roxana describes the importance of our tasks today. This area has had a history of exposure with invasive species from Europe, such as mugwort and rosa multiflora. Although these plant species may seem appealing to visitors, they continue to wide spread across the area and have potential to wipe out native spices of the park. Additionally, undesired vines have continued to spread across the ground, which hinder other plants’ abilities to grow in the area.
As our groups continue to clean the area, the leftover plant mass is brought outside the caution tape area to be amassed and collected. We bundled the branches and weeds up to carry them into the truck. However, during the middle of this process, our members were met with a dreadful rain. At this point, it was a race against time to finish cleaning up the road of plant mass. Our members assisted the park workers in compressing the plant mass to create more space in the truck storage. Luckily, we managed to fit all the collected plant mass before the end of the event.
We would like to extend our thanks to Park Supervisor Roxana and all the park staff for providing us with the tools and guidance that made this event possible! We truly appreciate the opportunity to work with you and hope to collaborate again in the future. During this event, we were able to beautify the park for the community. We would also like to express our gratitude to our parent advisor team for their support of our members. Finally, we would like to thank all the AYLUS Oakland Gardens members who joined us today despite the incoming rainy weather. Your efforts have contributed to the preservation of Kissena Park, ensuring it will be enjoyed by visitors for many years to come!
Our volunteers:
1. Jia Qi Liu (Angela): 3.5 hours
2. Hong Hao Liu (Alfred) : 3.5 hours
3. Vicki Lin : 3.5 hours
4. Sophia ShiHan You : 3.5 hours
5. Stephanie ShiRan You : 3.5 hours
6. Iokseng Lin : 3.5 hours
7. Ioklee Lin : 3.5 hours
8. Patrick Yeung : 3.5 hours
9. Benny Yeung : 3.5 hours
10. Terrence Cao : 3.5 hours
11. Dylan Chen : 3.5 hours
12. Kaden He : 3.5 hours
13. Katrina Zhang : 3.5 hours
14. Kaitlyn Zhang : 3.5 hours
15. Ruolin Gao : 3.5 hours
16. Jasmine Qu : 3.5 hours
17. Joanna Qu : 3.5 hours
18. Zhiheng Zhou : 3.5 hours
19. Haoze Gao : 3.5 hours
20. Sophia Xu : 3.5 hours
21. Anthony Xu : 3.5 hours
22. Lucas Chen : 3.5 hours
23. Alexander Lu : 3.5 hours
24. Bowen Chen : 3.5 hours
25. Aiden Lin : 3.5 hours
26. Brandon Lin : 3.5 hours
27. Anson Gao : 3.5 hours
28. Ivan Cao : 3.5 hours
29. Eason Lin : 3.5 hours
30. Isabella Wang : 3.5 hours
31. Zhuoning Li : 3.5 hours
32. Yifei Mei : 3.5 hours
33. Vicky Liu : 3.5 hours
34. William Lu : 3.5 hours
35. Evan Li : 3.5 hours
36. Anthony Lin : 3.5 hours
37. Eric Zheng : 3.5 hours
38. Matthew Lin : 3.5 hours
39. Jie Rui Liu : 3.5 hours
40. Albert Tang : 3.5 hours
41. Leon Chen : 3.5 hours
42. Hanna Chen : 3.5 hours
43. Jerry Shan : 3.5 hours
44. Zihan Shi : 3.5 hours
45. Nerissa Xu : 3.5 hours
46. Ella Tai : 3.5 hours
47. Paxton Xu : 3.5 hours
48. Selena ShiYan You : 3.5 hours
49. Sophia Lu : 2 hours
Parent Adviser Team:
Teng Fei Liu: 8 hours
Hsinhui Liao: 8 hours
Cui Fang Li: 8 hours
Report written by: Brandon Lin
Reviewed by: Jia Qi (Angela) Liu
