Greetings fellow interns, supervisors, and OC staff,
I was given the opportunity to give back to my community by helping out with the building of 2 rather large garden boxes for the Mid Tule Village housing development on June 30th. I gained several new communications skills as I completed this project. The first communication skill I gained was locating and having materials donated for the garden boxes. I was very fortunate to have found a bundle of cross-ties from one of my great friends and employer. I spoke with him in desperation of finding materials I could use to make the boxes.
The second skill I learned was for the much needed help. I heard that the First Baptist Church of Tulia was going to do a community service project as part of one of their missions. I contacted the youth minister and asked if I could help them with a community service project. I had been in contact with the manager of Mid Tule to see if they would need anything for their residence. That’s how we came up with the garden boxes.
After finding the help and materials, I then needed to find time to help build the boxes and fill them with soil. Which leads to my third new skill learned, locating the right gardening soil and how to properly place the soil inside the boxes for better gardening. The residence of Mid Tule Village were thrilled when they found out about the new garden boxes and were overly thrilled when my County Extension Agent and I brought in fresh soil and mulch for the boxes.
The fact that I helped out a small community within a large community had a large, lasting impression on me. Residence of low income can now have more room to grow fresh vegetables without having to spend their money on the vegetables that they could grow themselves.
