National Volunteer Week!

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National Volunteer Week!

National Volunteer Week is April 18th - 24th!

This year, we decided to interview some of our volunteers on why they enjoy working with Our City Forest and getting their hands dirty.

Here are their responses:

Allan Nguyen - Intern & Volunteer with Our City Forest

  1. Tell me about yourself. Is there anything you want people to know about you? What grade you are in (if in school), hobbies, or do you have any pets?

    My name is Allan Nguyen and I’m currently a junior at Piedmont Hills High School. I’m very interested in the ocean and marine biology and love listening to city pop. Some hobbies I have include testing the limits of my spice tolerance and playing video games with my friends.

  2. When did you start volunteering with OCF and why did you choose to start volunteering with OCF?

    I started volunteering with OCF as an intern on March 17th of 2021 as a marketing/outreach intern. My career pathway program actually placed me into the company and I wasn’t able to choose my company of choice but I’m very glad that I was able to volunteer with OCF.

  3. If you could have one song play every time you entered a room what would it be?

    Probably “Wait a Minute!” by Willow Smith to quite literally get the message across incase I am ever late.

  4. What do you put into the bowl first, milk or cereal?

    Definitely cereal.

  5. How has volunteering with OCF impacted you?

    OCF has taught me a lot about how an actual company functions day by day and helped me settle into a much more professional setting. I was able to learn about the tremendous impact that trees have on cities and urban areas.

  6. If you could eat one thing for the rest of your life what would it be?

    Fried Chicken, you can’t go wrong with fried chicken as there’s so many variants such as tenders, drumsticks, different types of sauces, brines, etc.

  7. What’s your go-to dish when you have to cook dinner?

    Usually I cook dinner just for myself so I’d probably go with a pack of fire noodles, preferably the carbonara flavor.

Anonymous Volunteer - Age 19

  1. When did you start volunteering with OCF and why did you choose to start volunteering with OCF?

    I started volunteering with OCF in June of 2019. I helped out a lot at the nursery and worked alongside the AmeriCorps members with various tree and shrub activities. I started volunteering to fulfill a school requirement, but ended up sticking around because of the people who make up the organization. Each time I came out to the nursery, I conversed with different people from all over the Bay Area and it was such a fun and relaxed environment. I ended up coming back week after week to help pot baby trees and shrubs, or build soil, etc.

  2. How has volunteering with OCF impacted you?

    Volunteering has changed my thoughts on how much change a small group of people can actually create in a community. OCF is a small organization, and yet we do so much as volunteers to help contribute to the health of the trees in the Bay Area. It is pretty amazing to see.

  3. If you could eat one thing for the rest of your life what would it be?

    I would choose tacos. You can’t go wrong with a taco, and there are so many varieties of things you can put in them too that you’ll never get sick of eating the same thing. Breakfast tacos are so good.

Dawson Chen - Dedicated Volunteer

  1. Tell me about yourself. Is there anything you want people to know about you? Where do you go to school & what grade are you in, hobbies, or do you have any pets?

    I go to the Harker School in San Jose, and I’m in 11th grade. Throughout high school, I have enjoyed building robots! I have dedicated the past two years to building an irrigation robot, which has basically become my pet at this point.

  2. When & why did you start volunteering with Our City Forest?

    I began volunteering at Our City Forest in fall of 2018, when my school first gave us the opportunity to come earn volunteer hours. After completing my hours however,

    I decided to continue volunteering regardless. The reason is that the people at OCF were incredibly kind, and my experience there was nothing but joy.

  3. How has volunteering with OCF impacted you?

    Volunteering with OCF has allowed me to become much more conscious of my environmental footprint on a daily basis. When I see a piece of trash in a public park, I am reminded of the hours I’ve spent with OCF picking up trash, so I know to dispose of it even if it’s not mine.

  4. If you could be mentored from any mathematician or scholar, who would it be & why ?

    Professor Savarese at Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab has done incredible research in robotics simulation and training, so I would love to meet and learn from him.

  5. What’s your favorite quote?

    The most dangerous thing in life is playing it safe. -Casey Neistat

  6. If you could talk to any living organism on the planet, what would you talk to?

    TREES. It sounds a little stupid, but I want to know how it feels to do photosynthesis.

  7. What would be your superpower?

    Healing things. People, animals, plants. I could just radiate a nutritious beam of light that uplifts people.

  8. Do you have a favorite tree or shrub?

    Rosemary shrubs are one of my favorites. They look like mini Christmas trees and smell almost angelic, especially when used in cooking.

Om Kannan - Dedicated Volunteer

  1. When & why did you start volunteering with Our City Forest?

    I started volunteering with OCF I believe around mid-December last year. I chose OCF because I'd volunteered there 2 years ago, and found it a great place to be. Friendly staff, fun work to do, and breaks as needed. I also realized that helping a good cause that not only helps the generations alive now, but also hundreds of generations to come made me feel very good.

  2. How has volunteering with OCF impacted you?

    As for how volunteering with OCF has impacted me, it's done nothing but impact me for the better. I've started to enjoy volunteering a lot, and find the work that needs to be done very fun, especially doing it with my friends.

Thank you to all our volunteers! We appreciate you!

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Let's Talk Composting

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Let's Talk Composting

California and much of the world is experiencing the direct effects of climate change in the form of extreme weather variability, prolonged droughts and fire seasons, an increase of invasive species encroachment, and much more. Often times it may be easy to dwell on the momentous task in front of us. Mitigating the worst-case climate scenarios can seem so unattainable that many people may just choose to simply do nothing. Yet, there are simple tasks we can do in our daily lives that will have profound and exponential results in our fight against climate change. One such example is composting. 

Composting is something we are all familiar with. Some may have learned about it in school or through self-gardening practices. However, composting is also a powerful tool that can be used to reduce the number of short-lived pollutants released into our atmosphere each and every day. The state of California realizes that in order to reach its ambitious climate emission reduction goals, reducing the amount of methane—a powerful gas 84 times more potent than carbon—is critical. Thus, SB 1383 was signed into law in 2016 with a mandate to reduce organic waste disposal by 75% by 2025 and rescue at least 20% of currently disposed surplus food for people to eat by 2025. This law requires that local jurisdictions provide organic waste collection services to all residents and business while also setting recovered organic procurement requirements in the form of compost, mulch, or renewable energy derived from anaerobic digestion or biomass conversion. 

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While it is great that the state will mandate the use of recycled organic materials, why wait for its implementation when it is easy to get started on your own and benefit both the environment and your own garden and/or lawn now? Effective composting practices have been proven to benefit enhanced soil carbon sequestration, soil water retention, erosion control, fire remediation, storm water management, and more thus making it an effective tool in both combatting the causing factors of anthropogenic climate change while simultaneously working to substantially mitigate the effects of it. 

~~~

Composting Basics - Get Started At Home:

  1. https://www.npr.org/2020/04/07/828918397/how-to-compost-at-home

  2. https://www.epa.gov/recycle/composting-home

  3. https://www.buzzfeed.com/tomvellner/heres-how-to-start-composting-in-2018

Sources:

California, State of. California's Short-Lived Climate Pollutant Reduction Strategy, www.calrecycle.ca.gov/organics/slcp.

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Thoughts on the Legacy of Cesar Chavez

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Thoughts on the Legacy of Cesar Chavez

I recently made my way down highway 101 from the Bay Area to San Diego. Agriculture lined the highway as I drove South. There are endless fields of fruit trees, vegetable plants, and grape vines. I recall reading a statistic during the 2016 Presidential election that California is responsible for nearly 15% of the United States’ total fruit and vegetable production. This statistic was reported because of talk that California wanted to secede from the United States and become its own country, and that it could sustain much of its GDP on agriculture. As I drove down highway 101, I noticed many workers in the fields, bare-backed and bent over the rows of produce. I thought about how much food I consume from these Californian farms, and how many of the workers in these fields have picked food for me. I don’t think enough people think about how we get food on our tables each day.

Having worked outside planting trees with Our City Forest for the past two years, I have learned that physical labor is extremely intense on the body. It is challenging to brave the elements all day long. It is even harder to repeat physical labor day after day, with very few breaks. Seeing the farm workers bent over picking produce hurts my own back; and they are doing this type of work day after day because society requires food, rain or shine.

Not only is agricultural work physically reprimanding, but these workers are also exposed to pesticides and herbicides. These contaminants are proven to be harmful to human health, and to even cause certain disabilities. The health effects do not only impact the workers in the fields, but also their families and entire communities. It is unfair that agricultural workers are expected to sacrifice their personal health and wellbeing purely to make a living. Oftentimes, these workers are paid below the minimum wage, making it even harder for them to support themselves and their families. Many of the farms get away with paying their employees less than the legal minimum wage because they hire immigrants without citizenship. This opens the door to unethical treatment of the workers, as the farm owners are not bound to U.S. law therefore do not need to treat their employees by law. Not only do the farm owner’s pay below minimum wage, they often pay their employees by the number of bushels of food they are able to pick during a day’s work. This means that employees are forced to hustle while on the job. Imagine adding running into a physically laborious job - seems awful, no?

José Gonzalez of Oaxaca, Mexico, a local farmworker, picks strawberries for Mar Vista Berry near Guadalupe, Calif. (LA Times, 2017).

Immigrants from Mexico working a Strawberry Farm near Guadalupe, CA (LA Times, 2017).

Since the agricultural business is extremely tough work and taxing on the body, it is not a popular field to choose to enter. Most field workers end up at these jobs out of desperation for any sort of employment. The low wages cause a trend of generations to remain working in the fields, in which the children end up at the same job as their parents just to be able to make ends meet. It is so unfortunate that the rights of these workers are undervalued and mismanaged. This is where Cesar Chavez’s story comes to light.

Cesar Chavez at UFW (NPR, 2016).

Cesar Chavez at UFW (NPR, 2016).

Cesar Chavez helped bring these issues to the forefront of human rights, and show the problems that are not addressed within the agricultural world. His parents had immigrated from Mexico, and ended up working at a farm in Yuma, Arizona where Chavez was born in 1927. Chavez was not an illegal immigrant himself, but was treated differently due to his family’s background. His background contributed to his fight for rights for farm workers, in which he brought to light the xenophobic maltreatment of immigrant workers. There are so many layers to Chavez’s union work - it wasn’t entirely about increasing wages, but about the inclusion of immigrants in the workforce. The United States has been and continues to be a xenophobic country, particularly towards Latin Americans. The majority of the policies surrounding immigration are indirectly targeted towards Latin Americans. These policies allow farmer owners to expose their employees to harsh and poor working conditions. Chavez pushed to repair the rough reality that farm workers face. His efforts in forming the United Farm Workers association paved the road as the first union to fight for the rights of agricultural employees. Chavez helped create UFW’s image - an Aztecan eagle and the phrase ‘Viva la causa’. Both symbolize the workers’ heritage, with the eagle signifying pride for Latin American culture and the phrase providing strength and power to the workers. The phrase is also in Spanish, connecting its significance to the racial undertones of the entire agricultural movement that Chavez started.

A UFW organized march in Oxnard, CA - Theresa Romero holds the UFW Flag bearing the Eagle symbol (KCRW, 2018).

A UFW organized march in Oxnard, CA - Theresa Romero holds the UFW Flag bearing the Eagle symbol (KCRW, 2018).

As I drove down to Southern California the other day, I thought about the workers’ rights as I passed them on the highway. I’m not convinced that as a country we really offer our agricultural workers many rights, especially if they are immigrants. Yet I believe the workers would be worse off without the work of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers. Chavez’s legacy is still relevant, and should be talked about more so that we can continue to fight for worker’s rights. I hope today you think about the food on your table and the people who worked to get it there. Most importantly, I hope you share this knowledge with someone. Knowledge is power, and educating others is prescient in developing change. We still have work to do in honoring Cesar Chavez’s legacy.

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