Greenwood Elementary Service Day by Randy Arnold
December 19th was a milestone date for Kiap-TU-Wish as we facilitated a service learning day for the Greenwood Elementary School fourth-grade class. They helped clear box elders and buckthorn from the Gibson easement on the upper Kinni.
I was contacted this past fall by their teacher, Steve Papp, who asked about the possibility of staging such an event. At first I was a little apprehensive about involving kids that young in one of our chapter brushing days which are typically strenuous and not without risk of some physical injury. However, after giving it some thought and talking it through with Steve, I decided that we could remove most of the dangers by cutting all the buckthorn and box elder in advance, as well as treating the stumps with herbicide. We could then stage a later workday where the kids would drag the cut brush and throw it on a bonfire which we would build.
Working around the Wisconsin deer season, two preparatory workdays were held in early November. Twelve volunteers turned out with chainsaws and loppers, to spend about 80 hours cutting invasives and treating the stumps. As we got closer to the service day event, a clear itinerary for the actual day was decided on: 66 fourth graders would be split into two groups. Half of them would participate in a nature walk led by WIDNR fisheries biologist Kasey Yallaly, while the rest of the group would tackle the buckthorn. (At that point I also realized that we probably had too much cut wood on the ground, so two subsequent workdays were held in early December where volunteers spent another 80 hours burning over half of the material which had been previously cut.)
The bus arrived on site at noon and the event started with a short talk about worksite safety and expectations for the day. Some 20 parent chaperones also took part in the event to help with some of the work and make sure that all the kids were safe. Seven TU volunteers helped out too and logged another 40 hours of volunteer time. The day was an astounding success as seen in the photos. Around 2:30pm the kids were treated to cup of hot chocolate and a cookie.
The weather for the day could not have been more cooperative. My earlier fears of temperatures hovering near zero and kids getting cold did not come to pass as the day’s temperature got close to 30 and the heat from the bonfire had many of the kids working in just a short sleeve shirt. I am hopeful that this can become a recurring event. There is certainly enough buckthorn and box elder to keep a whole army of young workers like this busy for a lifetime.
