2019-Earth Day: Garden Bed Construction @ High Plains Environmental Center

Start Date-End Date: 04/20/2019-04/20/2019 Land Manager Office: High Plains Environmental Center Land Manager Contact: Lauren Sadowsky Funding Partner: Programmatic Partner: Summary: Celebrate Earth Day weekend by creating a new garden exhibit with the family. Description: Where You'll Be: The High Plains Environmental Center (HPEC) in Loveland features 2 lakes, 76 acres, and 3 miles of trail that are open to the public year-round. The urban park is designed to demonstrate how natural places can be preserved in the midst of development through sustainable planning, and educate communities about the value of land stewardship, native plants, and wildlife habitat. VOC has partnered with HPEC since 2009 and our volunteers have been instrumental in developing the site's many gardens and exhibits. What You'll Do: Celebrate Earth Dayby creating the new Medicine Wheel Garden in Loveland's High Plains Environmental Center (HPEC). This is VOC's second year working on the Garden and the exhibit will highlight the historic edible, medicinal, and ceremonial uses of native plants by Colorado's Native American Plains Tribes. Open to volunteers ages 10+, this project is a great way to get outside with the family: you'll spend the day prepping garden beds,outlining them with rocks, filling them with soil, and installing drip lines to finish the exhibit. Why It Matters: With a small staff, volunteer projects like this one are instrumental to the development and maintenance of HPEC facilities. The Medicine Wheel Garden that volunteers create will be used to by HPEC to educate visitors - including more than 100 Larimer County schoolchildren - about gardening with native plants, their historic uses, and the heritage of Colorado Tribes. Need-to-Know Details: Minors under 16 must be accompanied by an adult 21 years or older on single-day projects. VOC will provide all equipmentincluding tools and work gloves. Cancellation:Our partners rely on VOC volunteers to accomplish critical stewardship needs, and our projects often have wait lists. If you need to cancel, pleasecontact Emily Schaeferat 303-715-1010 ext. 116 as soon as possible so we can free your spot for another volunteer and have a full workforce. About Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado (VOC) Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado (VOC) is the state's oldest, largest, and leading outdoor stewardship nonprofit organization. Founded in 1984 to motivate and enable people to become active stewards of Colorado's natural resources, VOC has engaged nearly 120,000 people in more than 1,000 volunteer projects for a donated labor value of $24 million. Through award-winning youth and volunteer programs, leadership training, capacity-building programs, and collaborative efforts with nonprofits and land management agencies, VOC is an invaluable resource in Colorado, especially as our outdoor stewardship needs are approaching near-crisis levels. For more information, visit www.voc.org or call 303-715-1010. Latitude/Longitude: 40.4203591, -105.01128469790882 Additional Information: Camping Available: No Physical Difficulty: Easy High Altitude Project: No Desired Number of Volunteers: 40 Total Adult Volunteers Attended: 42 Total Youth Volunteers Attended: 5 Total Volunteer Days: 47 Total Unique Volunteers: 47 Total Volunteer Hours: 399 Staff Hours: 32 Stipend Hours: 0 Project Summary: This Earth Day celebration began on a crisp and overcast spring morning at the High Plains Environmental Center (HPEC), nestled between three lakes in the suburbs of Loveland, Colorado. Forty-seven volunteers gathered for a light breakfast and coffee, and then, at 8:00am, congregated in front of the Medicine Wheel to learn about the project and to hear a moving welcome speech - partially given in the Lakota language - by HPEC executive director Jim Tolstrup. Volunteers joined one of 4 crew leaders and began hauling and placing over 20 tons of rocks to create a massive circular garden. The stone was rough cut and asymmetrical, forcing crews to fit the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle as they worked. Meanwhile, several volunteers helped to spread and flatten about 10 cubic yards of soil in the center of the circle to make an even dancing surface for tribal ceremonies. This primary activity lasted until 10:30am. As crews finished their sections of the garden walls they split off to distinct areas of the site to work on secondary projects; two groups moved and spread 30 cubic yards of wood chips to a youth Wild Zone and to another area of raised garden beds. Another group tended and labeled more than 300 plants in the greenhouse. And the last group reconstructed a beehive shaped willow hut after deconstructing the decaying original. One of the crews also sunk 12 fence posts that will eventually help to close off a social trail. Volunteers broke for lunch at 11:30am, which was generously donated by a local Chick-fil-A and supplemented by homemade cookies and fruit salad prepared by volunteer chefs. Director Tolstrup shared some of the history and philosophy of HPEC, and later the crews returned to their tasks where they worked enthusiastically until 1:30pm. Excellent turnout, perfect weather, a well-organized land management team, and energetic volunteers made this a highly successful project, and it is likely that VOC will be back to HPEC for years to come. Successes and Challenges: This project was non-traditional in many ways; it was an Earth Day celebration; it was in a suburb not a stone's throw from a new housing development; it entailed novel activities that many volunteers and even volunteer leaders had never undertaken before. So the most notable success was that even with such unique constraints, the land managers, volunteers, and volunteer leaders were well prepared, flexible, and extremely effective. Tool managers packed a perfect assortment of tools even though they didn't know what several of the overflow projects would entail. Our HPEC partners came up with interesting and engaging work as other tasks were completed. And the volunteers themselves bounced energetically from task to task without complaint. The biggest challenge was that the volunteers worked more quickly then anticipated - volunteer leaders and land management staff had to find more tasks several times as crews plowed through project after project. Our partners were prepared with a plethora of overflow work, but there were still some brief chunks of downtime while crews transitioned from one job to another. Also, as Director Tolstrup was the only person with a clear idea of the work that needed to be done, some groups found themselves waiting to get their marching orders. At one point VOC staff believed that all work could be completed even before lunch so they scrambled to ensure that the sandwich donation would arrive in time. It proved unnecessary, but volunteers were grateful to break early. Lessons Learned: Our tool managers and land managers showed both foresight and flexibility as crews blew through the preordained to-do list. Had we not had a variety of tools, and had our land managers not been creative, we may not have been able to get nearly as much accomplished. Packing a few miscellaneous tools for impromptu overflow work is highly recommended, as is ensuring that partners have several backup projects. Another minor lesson learned is that on projects with hot food donations there should be a way to keep that food hot until crews break for lunch. Special Notes: There was elevated interest in the project as it coincided with Earth Day. Turnout was very strong, energy levels were high, and morale was strong. VOC has a long history of partnering with HPEC and we hope to continue working with them for years to come. Stewardship Education: Executive Director Tolstrup explained the goal of this unique project during his welcome speech, discussing the role Plains Indians have had in the region for hundreds of years and noting how the Medicine Wheel would showcase some of the traditions and ethno-botanical practices used by those tribes. Key Concerns or Comments from Staff or Volunteers: Description of Accidents/Incidents: Description of Work Completed: