I, for one, am *not* a fan of the outdoors. I burn easily in the sun, bugs have an unrequited love affair with me and I’m far too prissy to enjoy anything related to dirt or that comes with the possibility of sweating. It’s not that I don’t think nature is beautiful or that I don’t want to preserve the ecosystems that are quickly being destroyed, it’s just that I’d rather look at them from the comfort of an air-conditioned building.
With this in mind, I’m sure it’s not difficult to imagine my reaction when my INST 210 professor broke the news that in order to fulfill the lab requirement we would need to complete 20 hours of community service, which would most likely be in one of the three campus gardens (hint: it was less than enthusiastic). Beyond my personal qualms with working outdoors, I’m also a commuter student with a long drive and an off-campus job, and the idea of trying to squish 20 hours into my schedule was headache inducing.
However — after a few months of procrastination — I finally gathered my courage, hoped for good weather, whipped out my oldest converse and went to my first shift.
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Now, I’ve heard about the psychological benefits of caring for plants and spending time outside, but I was always a little skeptical about it. That is, I was until after this first shift. It’s been an interesting year, sometimes in a really good way and sometimes in a bad way, and it’s not always been the easiest to keep a positive mental state. During my first shift, I immediately felt refreshed in a way that I wouldn’t previously have associated with 2 hours of manual labor. Maybe it was the crisp, spring weather, the company or the plants themselves, but I felt lighter than I had in months. With two hours down and 18 more to go, I was considerably less apprehensive about my upcoming volunteer shifts.
Photo via Chloe Fischer
Being a commuter, it’s so easy to fall into the routine of going to class and then immediately turning around and driving home rather than make an effort to be a part of the greater Mason culture, and it can be a very isolating experience as you’re trying to integrate and find your niche on campus. Sometimes it takes a little nudge to come out of your bubble and try something new and this time, that nudge came from INST 210. It was nice to venture out of the depths of Fenwick and be focused on a larger goal that was only loosely connected to class material — and it doesn’t hurt that it contributed to a project that desperately needs support.
Filled with native plants in order to ensure that it can’t have an impact on surrounding ecosystems, the garden contains flowers, fruit-bearing trees and bushes, lettuce plants and more. As a permaculture garden, the Innovation Food Forest has been engineered to be as self-sufficient as possible and take advantage of the natural systems in place, but as it develops there is a need for volunteers to ensure the project continues to thrive. Over the course of the shifts, we mulch the beds, remove weeds, maintain the compost soil and create covers for plants that the birds particularly enjoy to keep the garden running smoothly.
Photo via Chloe Fischer
However, despite their need for human capital, the Office of Sustainability has a hard time keeping a consistent crew of volunteers. Many Mason students have no knowledge of the garden or it’s purpose on campus or think very similarly to how I previously did, and the vast majority of their volunteers come from classes like INST 210. College students have a bad habit of procrastinating assignments until the last possible minute and these Service Learning assignments are no exception. As a result of this, there is an extremely inefficient distribution of volunteers throughout the semesters. When the gardens need more volunteers, the volunteers likely aren’t even thinking about starting their hours yet. Again, at the end of the semester, every shift is full and they have a difficult time keeping everyone busy. As a result of this, it makes things *very* hard on the Office of Sustainability and their interns to effectively train volunteers and do their jobs as effectively as possible.
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With Earth Day approaching, all of us here at Her Campus George Mason have been thinking critically about our ecological footprint (calculate yours here!) and what we can do to contribute to a more sustainable future. I encourage you to — this week and every week — look beyond switching out single-use bottles for reusable ones or buying a metal straw and also help contribute to sustainability initiatives on campus. The food we eat, where it comes from and what it’s grown with have a huge ecological impact, and organizations at Mason need your help to keep Mason Dining as local as possible. It only takes an hour to have a wide and tangible impact on campus sustainability for years to come.
I’ll see you in the gardens, collegiettes!
Photo via Chloe Fischer