Guadalupe Heritage Rose Plantingwps.ablongman.com/wps/media/objects/59/60967/GuadalupeHeritage.pdfRedevelopment Agency to complement a massive flood control project directed by the

Guadalupe Heritage Rose Planting

Community Action Project

Pe EWRT1A rsonal - Report

EWRT1A (Winter Quarter, 2002, De Anza College) Class instructor: Professor Marjorie Ford ([email protected]) Student: Wu, Yu Chan (Jonase) Group member: Huiling Shao, Samantha Chu, and Billy Yong Essay #006 Community Action Project: Detail Report & Specific Analysis SID: 911277725 Date: March 28, 2002

Community Experience & Learning Life is full of enjoyment and challenges. Every individual is required to make the first step to do something new in order to decorate each part of his/her life with joys,

© 2002 Yu Chan Wu, Huiling Shao, Samantha Chu, and Billy Yong. Reprinted by permission.

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experiences, and sweet memories. Without the enjoyment and challenges, our lives may not seem complete. You may want to ask me, “What exactly do you mean by enjoyment and challenges?” and “ How should we make our first step?” Here I would like to take my community action project as an example to further clarify, share one joyful experience in my life ☺ Our Community Action Project, a great proposal was assigned by my dear instructor, Prof. Marjorie Ford. When I heard the announcement of the project assignment, to be frank, I was flabbergasted! I began to panic and wonder, “How should I make the first step to find the organizations that require my assistance?” “How can I approach them?” “Where should I begin?” “What should I do during the volunteer work?” All of a sudden, a thousand puzzles flooded my mind. However, the above doubts were irrelevant. Why? It was because Prof. Marjorie guided us. She gave us time to think, generate our idea, research the relevant information, and share our research during the class. During peer sharing, my group members and I managed to note down an essential website, http://www.ca.gov. It is a site that provides concrete information about non-profit organizations: specific sorts of non-profit volunteer work in detail and schedules. With all the required information in our hands, without further hesitation, we began our community service journey ☺

My community action project was a group project: the four students members included: the cheerful and thoughtful Huiling Shao, the energetic and heart-feeling Samantha Chu, the extreme friendly and patient Billy Yong, and me. We are all best friends who trust each other. We like to learn and have new experiences together. We like to share the joyful moments together. Working together we learned how to respect each other’s opinions during the community work. We experienced a cooperative spirit and a commitment to our community project.


http://www.ca.gov/

North

West East South Minimize Map Scale: Guadalupe River Park & Garden Total Actual Distance: 3 miles + I can still remember vividly that it was a cold, breezy Wednesday afternoon (February 13, 2002); my group members and I drove to downtown San Jose to meet with the volunteer work coordinator. Her name is Ms. Kathleen Muller. She is the executive director of the city project. She warmly greeted us at the office reception area and invited


us in to further explain the community work that we were going to perform. The organization’s project title is called, Guadalupe: River Park & Gardens. She explained that the Guadalupe River’s long history of flooding, along with the recurring dream of building a park that followed the river, provided the basis for the Guadalupe River Park & Gardens. The park was designed and developed by the City of San Jose and the Redevelopment Agency to complement a massive flood control project directed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Santa Clara Valley Water District. The proposal for the public gardens grew from an opportunity to beautify and utilize a former residential area in the immediate approach zone to the San Jose International Airport. Ms. Kathleen further added, “When the city project is completed, the Guadalupe River Park & Gardens will provide quiet places to enjoy the natural habitat, river walks for hiking and biking, picnic and play areas, extensive public gardens, public art, and meadows for community festivals, to the public.” She said our job would be mainly focused in the garden section situated in the northeast portion of downtown San Jose. The garden we worked in had four sub gardens: Heritage Rose Garden, Historic Orchard Garden, Courtyard Garden, and Rock Garden. After we had discussed our intentions by explaining our EWRT1A project in great detail, we were then guided and introduced to one of the mysterious gardens, Heritage Rose Garden.

When we arrived at the Heritage Rose Garden, my first impression was, “This is a secluded deserted area!” “A place where birds won’t lay their eggs!” To me, it was just an empty piece of land covered with nothing but microscopic rocks. But my whole point of view changed when we met the volunteer coordinator, Ms. Lucy Perez, at the wooden-made garden center. She greeted us with a broad welcoming smile and further described the current garden situation and progress. I told her, “I thought the garden should be a place where birds sing and flowers radiate their fragrance, shouldn’t it be a joyous scene?” Ms Perez said, “It is not the right season, and we are still working very hard at organizing the garden, which is why we need all of your kind assistance,” she replied smilingly. “We are currently taking care of 5,000 plants and 3,500 varieties of antique and modern roses. We couldn’t maintain them without the volunteers’ warm support and effort!” To be frank, I was profoundly impressed by these volunteers’ willingness and devoted hearts. Their will to beautify our community is truly astounding. Therefore, we decided to volunteer to help this garden project for two Saturdays, 3 hours each; and our volunteer work began on February 23, 2002 ☺ If I remember correctly, our first day of working was a sunny, breezy morning. We arrived at the garden at around 9am+. All of the volunteers gathered together to be introduced to each other and then we set sail for the field. The person who was in charge at the garden on that day was Ms Kathy. She jubilantly introduced us to all the field helpers, and I was really glad that all of the people were friendly and kindly. They were willing to teach us from their experience and guide us through the rest of the work. We put on a pair of protective gloves and took the rake in our hands, “Here we are! Guys! Let’s rock ‘n’ roll!” Ms. Kathy shouted with a big broad smile standing on the other side of the planting field ☺


Our first fieldwork project involved fertilizing. We started fertilizing the plant by shoveling and digging the soil with a small cavity 6 inches away from the root of the plant. We did this because we did not want to over enrich the plant’s root nutritionally. A spoonful of green-in-color cubic-shaped fertilizer is required during the process. Although the progress was simple and catchy, we had to beware of the spicule of the roses. We spent almost 45 ~ 50 minutes fertilizing over 30 rose plants in two sections in the Heritage Rose Garden.

Photo #01: Fertilizing

Our second fieldwork project was planting. I must admit that the planting job was harder and tougher than fertilizing. In this particular stage, we were going to plant California Roses. The field helper taught us how to dig a cavity at the designated position on the planting section. In addition, the required depth of the cavity had to be approximately equal to the height of the rose container so as not to over/under cover the rose’s root.


Photo #02: Cavity Formation

Photo #03: Planting (California Rose) During the planting process, the fertilizer we were using for this stage was called, Worm-Mud (Castings) We were told that it is made with different kinds of ingredients; for instance, vegetables, fruit/ fruit peels, food, and of course…worm ☺ After being mixed with the soil, a mud-like soils forms.


Photo #04: Rose Planting Location 001

Photo #05: Rose Planting Location 002 To finish our last work in this field, we had to cover the planting bed with special made softened soil to complete the final layer of the planting. We used soil carriers to transport special-made soil from the loading site to the main planting location. Although it was heavy to transport the soil, it was fun to push a carrier with one wheel! ☺


Photo #06: Transporting soft soil to the planting field 000

Photo #07: Transporting soft soil to the planting field 001


Photo #08: Unloading soft soil onto the planting bed 002 Our third fieldwork project on the second weekend was mulching. We did the mulching in another field and that required us to transport the mulches (mixed with wood flour, saw dust, leaves and plants.) to another section of the rose planting. The section was located on the southern portion of the Heritage Rose Garden.

Photo #09: Transporting mulches to the mulching site 000


Photo #10: Mulching field 001

Photo #11: Transporting and Unloading mulches to the mulching site © 2002 Yu Chan Wu, Huiling Shao, Samantha Chu, and Billy Yong. Reprinted by permission.

During the mulching process, we had to make sure that we had shoveled and ploughed the mulches evenly throughout the entire planting bed because mulches are required to cover the planting bed entirely to prevent sunlight from reaching the soil bed and to prevent weeds from growing.

Photo #12 & #13: Shoveling and plough mulches at the mulching site


Other than using the tools like mulch carrier and rack, we had to use harrow to harrow the field.

Photo #14: Harrowing mulches at the mulching site From my above description, this was our work assignment in the Heritage Rose Garden. After compiling all the necessary data and photo slides, we presented our community action project successfully on March 18, 2002 at De Anza College. Although I wouldn’t say that our group and I had done an excellent job in contributing to our community, we, at least, had shared our precious moments, information, experiences and sufficient visual aids to our instructor and classmates. To me, the purpose of our presentation was not mainly to pass the class, get a grade, or impress my fellow classmates. We hoped to spread the word about the profound beauty of the garden. I wouldn’t say we have contributed to our community that much compared to the rest of the full time volunteers, but I believe after we experiencing a series of gardening lessons at Guadalupe Heritage Rose Garden for the past 2 weekends, we have changed our viewpoint entirely about the word, Volunteerism. Not only have we learned about the hard work the rest of the full time volunteers have already contributed to the community, but also we had come to better understand their personal determination and warm hearts towards beautifying our society. That is truly something that we can learn from them. Their willingness, greatest effort, cooperation, and joyful personality gave us an entirely different sense of being an individual. Does volunteering challenge a student? Does it a challenge to an office-worker? And does it bring a friendly energy to our community? I sincerely believe it does ☺ © 2002 Yu Chan Wu, Huiling Shao, Samantha Chu, and Billy Yong. Reprinted by permission.

In summary, I would like to end my report by saying that this project has given me a meaningful opportunity to work together with my dearest classmates. Most importantly, we learned how to cooperate, to share the joys while working together with all the volunteers, and to build a better living environment in our own community. I am grateful and thankful to my group-mates who assist in completing this great project with me; in addition, I would like to thank Prof. Marjorie Ford for giving us this greatest moment and opportunity to experience community learning together with the rest of my dear classmates during the quarter. It is only through her supportive guidance that we had a clear direction; it is only through her encouragement that we had a positive thinking towards learning. I will secretly put this special moment together with my community experience as part of my heart and…my life. Last but not least, it is my gratitude to share the precious Winter Quarter with them. I sincerely wish all of them wealth and prosperity ☺

Photo #15: Central Heritage Rose Garden

~ End ~


Information: Guadalupe: River Park & Garden: The Guadalupe River Park & Garden extends from Highway 880 in the north to Highway 280, a distance of almost three miles along the river. Trails within the park will eventually connect to the Los Gatos Creek Trail and others in the countywide system. Guadalupe Gardens presently features the Heritage Rose Garden, Historic Orchard, Taylor Street Rock Garden, and the Courtyard Garden. Additional plans call for community garden plots and other special variety gardens. Guadalupe: River Park & Gardens 50 W. San Fernando Street, suite 1500 San Jose, CA 95113 Tel: (408) 298-7657 World Wide Web: http://www.grpg.org Guadalupe: River Park & Garden staff: Kathleen Muller (Executive Director) 50 W. San Fernando Street, Suite1100 San Jose, CA95113 Tel: (408) 277-5998 Fax: (408) 277-3153 Email Address: [email protected] World Wide Web: http://www.grpg.org Lucy Perez (Volunteer Coordinator) Garden Center 715 Spring Street, Taylor Guadalupe Gardens, San Jose Tel: (408) 298-7657 Fax: (408) 298-6447 Email Address: [email protected] World Wide Web: http://www.grpg.org


http://www.grpg.org/





Documents

Guadalupe Heritage Rose Plantingwps.ablongman.com/wps/media/objects/59/60967/GuadalupeHeritage.pdfRedevelopment Agency to complement a massive flood control project directed by the