AfterWords

Community Spaghetti Feed and Auction at Trinity Lutheran Church
Fundraiser for Edmonds Community College Student Association Project Home

May 30th, 2009 (Saturday) from 12:00-2:00 with a live Auction and ‘rummage sale items’

Trinity Lutheran Church
6215-196th St. SW
Lynnwood WA 98036

All proceeds benefit the Project Home Association of Edmonds Community College. The goal is to build funds in order to support our homeless students in the areas of transition housing, emergency funds, skill building education around life advancement activities, and food. Tickets are available the day of at the door.

Nicole A Allen
Executive Officer for Diversity
ASEdCC_Diversity@edcc.edu

Volunteers are encourge to post their reflection here.

Students, staff and community came together this weekend for this annual event planned by the First Nation Club. Many thanks to volunteers for dedicating their time to make this event successful. We welcome any feedback, reflection of your experience and any comments. Pictures of the event and my personal volunteer coordinator reflection will be posted shortly.

Updated on May 10th, 2009:
Similar to most of the volunteers, this was my first year attending EdCC Pow Wow and also my first time coordinating volunteers for an event. Since I have not participated in other pow wows, I am not sure how this event compares to the past years. In my perspective, the event went smoothly as the volunteers were wonderful in being adaptive with tasks I gave them. On Sunday tear down, with assistance from the lovely volunteers, we finished an hour earlier then predicted. With 12-hour long days, I realize that I fuel on others’ experiences and their excitement is what I strive towards. In the end, I was tired of fried bread and pop corn; however, I’ve gain a new understanding of interpersonal connection and I feel very honor to have helped with this year’s powwow.

Exciting things are happening for Americorp! Obama has tripled the size of Americorp, and created new divisions such as the GreenCorp. Yay!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090421/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_national_service

For those who still aren’t sure if Americorp is for them, it is! Americorp is for everybody. Check out www.edcc.edu/americorp for more information.

When one says they’re going to be volunteering to survey microplastics, it’s likely that most people don’t have a clue what microplastics are, and wonder why you’re surveying them. Well, to answer the question, microplastics are pieces of plastic that have photodegraded into smaller and smaller pieces. Since plastic doesn’t actually biodegrade, the plastics stay there in the ocean, imitating pieces of food for fish, birds, etc. While “nurtles” are a fun name to say, it’s not so exciting to know that these plastic pieces are harming the ecosystem. Even more disturbing is the presence of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, where, because of the currents of the ocean, a good portion of the Earth’s trash ends up floating in this gyre, accumulating trash, debris, and plastics into an area the size of Texas.

I first heard about this phenomenon from Curtis Ebbesmeyer (I would highly recommend reading some of his work), when he came as part of the People For Puget Sound/REI Talk Series last year. So, when I found out that my former organization, the Snohomish County Marine Resources Committee, was teaming with WSU Beach Watchers, and the Port Townsend Marine Science Center, I decided to tag along with the other volunteers from Edmonds Community College.

The first day was the field day, where we would collect the samples at Mukilteo Lighthouse Park and Howarth Park. I was happy to be out in the field, and on the beach again, although it was pouring down rain, and I was drenched. By the afternoon site, the weather cleared, and it was refreshing. The process of collecting the samples was simple enough, but the analysiswas the hard part. I was in charge of sorting pieces of plastic, Styrofoam, twine, and other human-made debris out of a tray of rocks, twigs, sticks, and shells, only using tweezers and a microscope. Can you say tedious? I started going stir-crazy at the end, so I must give my special thanks to David for helping me finish my tray.

Overall, it was a great experience, and I am curious to see the results of the survey and notice any trends or differences across the sites in Puget Sound.

Anyone else want to share their experiences on the microplastics survey? How about the sand flea incident?

This is the first time I’ve posted a blog on Afterwords, so I thought I’d introduce myself first. I am the new Center for Service Learning Coordinator. I came from a background in Environmental Studies and Marine Sciences, and worked as an AmeriCorps Member at Snohomish County Marine Resources Committee. I met Tom Murphy when I worked with the LEAF School as a community partner. I have been working here since the end of January, and I still can’t get enough of it! I absolutely love what I do, and I can’t imagine myself anywhere else right now.

This brings me to the point of my blog today – last week, I joined S.A.V.E. the Earth Club in their Alternative Spring Break on Orcas Island. While I admit I love spending time in the San Juan Islands (I live and breathe marine biology), I was worried about spending three whole days away from my job, particularly because of all the deadlines I was trying to juggle. Three days away? I couldn’t handle it!

As luck would have it, the trip was exactly what I needed to snap me back to reality. We often get so caught up in deadlines, paperwork, meetings, etc, and forget the real point of our work – connecting to people and serving our community. Orcas Island reminded me that my work is important. I had an incredible time, met some great people, and connected to the land and community. What more could I ask for?

To me, community engagement is about the people and the connections you make. I live for those “aha” moments as I feel pride swell within me when I make a difference in a student’s life, or joy when I see someone get excited about learning. I thoroughly enjoyed watching one student’s exhilaration over the tall trees and how he could measure them using Pythagorean’s Theorem, and was particularly touched by another student’s poem about her life-changing experience on Orcas. It’s these types of things that make me ecstatic to be a part of Edmonds Community College and the Center for Service Learning.

I encourage those who participated on the trip to share their experiences here on this blog (post as a comment). I’d love to hear more perspectives, and I’m sure the campus community will want to know too!

Thank you to all those students who’ve touched my life in a way I can’t even begin to describe! You guys are awesome!