Every year students, clubs, and other organizations have the opportunity to take part in JUMP's largest community service days of the year, Sonoma Serves! JUMP is SSU Associated Students' community service program that makes it possible for students to serve their community through volunteering, hence Sonoma Serves. I had never participated in Sonoma Serves before, so I felt excited to see what it was all about.
The morning started with being organized into our teams for the day. As a study abroad alumna, I decided to volunteer with the International group. JUMP offered free drinks and snacks to get us pumped up for what was to come. Our group was scheduled to be sent to Mcnear Elementary School located in Petaluma, so we ate our snacks, went into our carpools and headed out.
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Upon our arrival, Liz Platte, Programs Coordinator for a sustainability non-profit organization called Daily Acts, welcomed us to the school and gave us an intro of how we would be helping the community. Daily Acts values educating Sonoma County on conserving resources through assisting with gardening and water conservation. Liz explained that the school lawn is getting attacked with an aggressive weed and it is our job to help get rid of it, so we put on some gloves and got to digging. We spent the majority of the time digging the weeds out of the lawn area as well as spreading mulch to other areas to help fertilize it. While pulling weeds doesn't sound like something many would want to do on a Saturday, I found it incredibly relaxing to be outdoors and had fun getting to know my team.
The day went by pretty fast in my opinion, before I knew it, it was already time to leave. We wrapped up by sharing our favorite parts of the day and took a few photos around the garden. We all agreed that the best part was being able bond through something as tedious as pulling weeds. Everyone was in good spirits as we drove back to school.
Overall, I had a really great experience at Sonoma Serves. It shows that you can help the community in small ways and have fun while doing it. I'm glad that I decided to take my last opportunity to partake in this community service day and would recommend it to any Sonoma student.