Dig It, From the Eyes of Alexander

Hello my name is Alexander Harper I’m a 17 year old that attends Clyde C.Miller Career Academy. My school is a career and technical high school.This means we have career clusters such as Bio-Tech, Nursing, and Business Administration. Students are able to decide what we would like to study when we attend college.

 

In addition to programs like Future Business Leaders of America, National Honor Society, and Student Council, I love to garden at home. Once I heard about Dig-It I knew I would like to jump on board. One of my favorite things to grow is vegetables and being in this program has given me more insight about maintaing a vegetable garden. I am truly enjoying my time here so far.

 

This week with Dig-It has been awesome. Although, it has been raining cats and dogs, we have been steadfast with our duties. On Wednesday, all of the crew met in Bell Garden, stepping slowly on the soaked grass for our daily morning meeting. It had already rained nonstop for two days. I’m sure everyone was looking forward to a “laid-back week” but Kathleen quickly busted our bubble. She entered the circle with a grin on her face saying “I know you guys think we’re not doing much but we are sticking to the weeks schedule.” I quickly thought to myself “she must be crazy, we are going to be drowning in water!” By the look of others they were thinking the same exact thing. Kathleen continued with a smile saying “get those raincoats and ponchos ready!” It wasn’t two minutes after her saying this that it began raining, we had to run to quickly to the carriage house and of course received duties for the week.

 

Thursday June 18, 2015 was the best day I had with Dig-It. Blue group, consisting of four crew members and two crew leaders, set out on a trip to Crown Center to help assist with the senior’s garden and green house. What a day it was… We arrived around 9:30 a.m. and the weather appeared to clear as we began walking to the small garden, speckles of rain started to come down down. I said “Oh Lord!” Everyone bursted out laughing. Kathleen, who was one of crew leaders, said “Okay, we’ve got work to do.” She stated all the things we had to do, went in with our crew member Emmanuel and they began working inside with the seniors. Kortez, another crew leader, and Michael, a crew member, decided to stay outside and harvest the overgrown carrots, greens, and lettuce. Christine, a crew member, and I decided to clean and organize the greenhouse. We thought we were getting out of the rain but the house had leaks. Imagine walking and a big cold drop of water suddenly falling on your head!

 

After everything was harvested and distributed into bags we had to take fresh produce to the residents. Then we went back down to the floor to meet our peers and have a group discussion. In that group discussion, we all realized we like the independence Kathleen gave us, older people are fun to be around, and we should always push through things in order to get the job done. Next week I look forward to learning how to build things and more fun encounters.