On October 25th 2025, 9am to 12pm, AYLUS Oakland Gardens held their 201st event at Browne Playground outside of P.S 020. During the event we collaborated with Maureen and Ada on cleaning up and mulching the Playground.
We began with Maureen explaining our task, our volunteers were assigned to weed the peace garden in preparation for the planting of flower bulbs. We were then gathered outside the garden and Maureen and Ada handed us rakes, shovels, garbage bags, and hand rakes. Meanwhile other volunteers and Arista from John Browne High School were given trash pickers and bags to collect trash around the park. At half-way into the event Ada took a small group of AYLUS members to move mulch into the Flower beds that the other volunteers cleared earlier. Now these members were provided with two wheel barrows, five garbage bags, and four pitchforks. To spread the mulch we were provided with five rakes. We move over 20 loads of mulch into two flower beds in the playground. Because there were no fence gates that were wide enough to fit the wheel barrow, we had to lift and tip the wheel barrow over the fence. With the trash bags we moved mulch to surround the garden. During the clearing of the Peace Garden we pulled up small shrubs, vines, and mugwort.
After we were finished Maureen gathered us around for the Diwali celebration. At the celebration, there were members of the Sikh Center of New York and the Hindu Center. Before the celebration Maureen had us help set up ribbons on the fences around the area. She also had us help display the food and snacks. After that she explained to us what Diwali is. Diwali is an Indian holiday celebrating light. After that, a musician on the Dhol, a type of double headed drum, started playing music for the start of the celebration. During the celebration Maureen and members of the Sikh and Hindu centers handed out delicious, traditional Indian food; soft drinks and Halloween candies.
At the end of the event we thanked Maureen for providing us with delicious food, drinks and snacks. We would like to thank the ARISTA of John Browne High School for assisting us during today’s event. We would like to thank the Sikh Center for their participation during the celebration. We would also like to thank the Hindu Center for their participation during the event. Lastly we would like to thank Maureen for this opportunity to work with her again. We hope to work with her even more in the future.
Our Volunteers:
1. Jia Qi Liu: 3 hours
2. Hong Hao Liu: 3 hours
3. Ioknor Lin: 3 hours
4. Ioklee Lin: 3 hours
5. Henry Jiang: 3 hours
6. Adrian Jiang: 3 hours
7. Steven Zhu: 3 hours
8. Zhiheng Zhou: 3 hours
9. Vincent He: 3 hours
10. Danny Lin: 3 hours
11. Kaden He: 3 hours
12. Bowen Chen: 3 hours
13. Fayee Chen: 3 hours
14. Sophia Xu: 3 hours
15. Anthony Xu: 3 hours
16. Tyrone Li: 3 hours
17. Evan Li: 3 hours
18. Eric Zheng: 3 hours
19. Alexander Lu: 3 hours
20. Zihan Shi: 3 hours
21. Wesley Huang: 3 hours
22. Austin Yuel: 3 hours
23. Sophia Lu: 3 hours
24. Kaisa Wu: 3 hours
25. Stephanie You: 3 hours
26. Ivan Cao: 3 hours
27. Eason Lin: 3 hours
28. Terrence Cao: 3 hours
29. Anson Gao: 3 hours
30. Yuhan Lin: 3 hours
31. Zhanger Li: 3 hours
32. Vicki Lin: 3 hours
33. Ryan Wu: 3 hours
34. Albert Tang: 3 hours
35. Tingyue Li: 3 hours
36. Mohan Luo: 3 hours
37. Matthew Lin: 3 hours
38. Paxton Xu: 3 hours
39. Ella Tai: 3 hours
40. Nerissa Xu: 3 hours
41. Ashlee Chen: 3 hours
42. Tian Zhu Xie: 3 hours
43. Selena You: 3 hours
Parent Adviser Team:
Fannie Li (Fannie): 4 hours
Faye Liu (Faye): 4 hours
Karen Liao (Karen): 4 hours
Report written by: Matthew Lin
Reviewed by: Jia Qi (Angela) Liu
