Category: Updates

Update #1

by svarghese5

Hi Everyone! Today, I began my volunteering projects with the Georgia Native Plant Society (GNPS). It did and did not meet my expectations of what I thought volunteering with GNPS would be like. 

At 10 in the morning, I got to volunteer at the Stone Mountain Propagation Project (SMPP). Located behind the parking lot of Stone Mountain is a place filled with rows of pots of native plants that were being nurtured. There, I got to work separating native plants into gallon-sized pots they could grow in. The work taught me that gardening can require sawing apart the soil sometimes. I also learned to pot plants, which I have not done before. While volunteering at SMPP, I also got to meet other volunteers. Most of them were retired and their professions ranged from being a microbiologist at CDC to being in IT, but they all had a passion for gardening. Their level of knowledge in gardening also surprised me because it was not a part of their profession before. From them, I learned interesting things like insects can secrete chemicals that cause a specific plant (I can’t remember the name) to change its growth pattern to protect the insect’s egg; the effect on the plant also depends on the insect. 

At 2 in the afternoon, I volunteered at Mary Scott Nature Park. I would pass by this park every day on my way to my high school, but I never visited it. At Mary Scott, I got to do what I had originally expected to do when partnering with GNPS: dig out invasive species of plants and promote the growth of native plants. I got to remove invasive plants from the ground, allowing the native plants to grow better. There, I got to meet Susan and Marty. They showed me the different plants that were invasive and native. I would follow Marty around and from her, I learned how to separate the “bad guys” and “good guys”. I would point out and help her remove the “bad guys”. The digging up of invasive plants mainly occurred near the parking lot at the entrance. This is because this is the site many people visit first. If visitors saw an invasive species growing at the park, they would assume that those same plants were suitable to buy from a store and to grow in their backyard. To avoid this, once a month volunteers would dig up and trash invasive plants to both promote native plants to visitors and to also allow the native plants to grow without competition. 

In both these opportunities, the volunteers were very welcoming and would help me learn about Georgia plant life. I learned about their interesting and various backgrounds while they learned about mine. Volunteering with GNPS has started on a fun note and I hope that it continues like so. 

I am excited about my future opportunities with GNPS!

Service Blog Post #2

by mpham29

Hi everyone, I am Mina Pham. My community partner is Chattahoochee River, a non-profit organization working to reduce the amount of litter from different regions of the Chattahoochee River. Mr. Jordan Yu, Watershed Protection Specialist, is the person that I will be working with. His work involves a variety of duties, including litter cleanup and analysis, water sampling, pollution tracking, speaking events, workshops, and social media.

On the first day, I was introduced to the office and the laboratory section, where we could look at water samples and analyze the number of bacteria and microplastics. After that, Jordan, Jullian, and I prepared the equipment and protective clothing, and then we headed out to the first site to check the trash trap and clean it up. They cleaned the trash trap since it was the first day of the week. We headed to the furthest north site, Chamblee and Doraville. This site experienced sewage spillage a couple of months ago; therefore, we must be cautious about not letting any liquid get on our skin and clothes.

One of the most exciting works that I got to experience during the first day was learning more about how the organization works and how they set up different trash traps around the metro Atlanta city. Everyone was amiable, and I discovered a lot about their previous studies in the past few years about how they track down the source of littering by collecting multiple samples at different sites. Working under the water and exposing yourself to an aquatic environment, you might come in contact with small animals like spiders, mice, and water snakes. It is something that you cannot avoid. One of my most challenging works was climbing different cliffs to access the trash traps. Fun fact: one of my boots fell out as I tried to climb up. One surprising thing was how much trash we collected for each site was different, even when they had the same flow. For example, the site in Doraville was filled with Styrofoam and plastic bottles, while the site in Buckhead was filled with mud and only had plastic bottles.

Blog Post 2- Getting Started

by khira1

Kaden and I visited the Blue Heron Nature Preserve in person on Thursday to meet with Denise, the operations director of the preserve, as well as some of the team like Melody the executive director. Denise was very lovely and talked to us about our goals and why we wanted to choose Blue Heron as our main service organization, which was to help volunteer and give back to the community as well as expand our knowledge about environmental conservation. My main goal and aspiration is hopefully to continue to work with the organization a couple of times in the summer if I have the time, to fully grasp all aspects of environmental organizations and to help push knowledge about the environment. We talked about the different types of environments that Blue Heron has to offer, with riparian, meadows, wetlands, and woodlands, and how each of them combine to make Blue Heron a hidden spot in the heart of Buckhead. Melody and Denise both touched on how they wanted to expand and push the knowledge of Blue Heron onto different levels of generations to come and observe and travel through different parts of nature right in the city. We went on a walk throughout part of the woodlands and riparians, to see the different environmental works they have been preserving and planting, especially native plant species. Denise talked about the importance of native planting and preservation because of invasive species invading Georgia. One of the most prevalent we saw on our walk was the English Ivy, which crowds an abundance of trees and lower plants, cutting off their ability to have vital nutrients from the soil. For one of the weeks, we will be cutting down and removing some of the English Ivy in hopes of preventing further spread of the plant. One of the most interesting things was the information about the riparian, with the addition of two creeks, the Nancy and Mill Creek, which run through the preserve. Finding out about riparians, which I had no clue what they were before, was very interesting. This was brought into one of the service project ideas about having weathering stations to track various aspects of temperature and rainfall was an idea that we are hoping to fulfill for each part of the 4 areas of Blue Heron. All in all, I am very excited to see what kinds of things we are going to do in the upcoming weeks for the preserve and how that will tie into spreading awareness and helping Blue Heron. 

 
 

These are some pictures from our walk!

Blog Post #2 Dua Spall

by dspall1

On Thursday, the 25th, I visited Dunwoody Nature Center for the first time to meet my organization and learn about my upcoming responsibilities. As mentioned in my introduction, I was surprised by the breathtaking beauty of the park upon my arrival. While I had an idea of  a simple building and a walking trail, the reality exceeded my expectations with its calming, aesthetic, and scenic environment. Although specific tasks have not yet been assigned to me, I have gained insight into the diverse and exciting projects I will soon get to work on. 

These projects include a range of activities, including tasks within the park, interactions with various animals, and involvement in marketing and social media for the organization. Of these, I am eager to engage in ground projects, as the park’s beauty is very exciting, and I am excited to explore it firsthand.

One aspect of my role that I find somewhat challenging is working with children. As the youngest in my family, I have limited experience in caring for or spending around children. However, I am both excited and nervous about the opportunity to learn about teaching children and participating in projects involving them, as I believe it will be a valuable learning experience.

During my visit to the nature center on Thursday, I was happy to learn that I would be attending a program featuring live animals. I had the chance to interact with a live snake and turtle, an experience that had me very surprised yet excited, considering it was only my first day. Through this hands-on encounter, I learned about the habits and habitats of snakes and turtles, gaining valuable information into their roles within our environment.

This initial experience has left me even more excited for the future. In just one day, I have had the opportunity to meet incredible people, learn interesting facts about animals, and connect myself with the nature of the park. I am eager to continue with this organization and learn more about what it has to offer. I hope to apply these valuable lessons in the real world and teach it to others curious about how they can help and connect with nature. 

My Neighborhood’s Creek

by yalluri1

Volunteering with Atlanta Creek League has been amazing and beyond my expectations this semester. Through this opportunity, I’ve explored my neighborhood and parts of it that I didn’t even know existed. About two weeks ago, Hannah(One of the founders of Atlanta Creek League) and I explored the neighborhood I live in to determine the water flow using the creek’s start and end point. During this process, we discovered that my neighborhood’s creek doesn’t have a name, so we plan to name it soon, and for the time being, we are calling it ‘Garden Hills Creek.’

So, we first started locating the water stream in different parks in the neighborhood, and we successfully figured out that the Creek water starts at ‘Frankie Allen Park’ and ends at ‘Peachtree Hills Park.’ We’ve found that the water comes through a pipe at ‘Frankie Allen Park,’ from there, it’s just a stream again flowing through a couple of pipes.

So the creek flows as such: ‘Frankie Allen Park’ —– ‘Sunny Brook Park’ —– ‘Alexander Park’ —– ‘Peachtree Hills Park’ —– ‘Peachtree Creek.’ There is another creek that flows from ‘Sidney Marcus Trail’ and then connects to the one from ‘Alexander Park’ and combines flow to ‘Peachtree Hills Park.’ The creek is rich with wildlife, and based on my observation, the water seemed clean and fresh. Also, Hannah taught me the difference between English Ivy and Poison Ivy. It was an experience I would never forget, and I still keep visiting these parks every weekend since I first visited them for sights of new observations and encounters.

So as this creek has no name to it for now, Hannah and I are thinking of giving it a name, and soon we’ll be planning to work on it. I never thought that I would be connected to an organization as I currently do with Atlanta Creek League. I personally love exploring the nature-rich parts around me, but I never thought that I’d have some very close to me, and being a part of this organization helped me with that. For my final project, my fellow volunteering partner Noor and I decided to share our experiences and discuss some basic information about creeks in general. We will combine our experiences and our creek’s information for better understanding.

Garner Creek Clean Up

by sthomas178

  

 

Atlanta Creek League has allowed me to set up a clean-up of my local creek. It is always so exciting to be able to do hyper-grassroots events. This creek has been a key part of my childhood, I can remember the cold water on the hot summer days. Recently, my creek has undergone some extreme construction. While this construction is to help the ecosystems within the creek, it still caused a big strain on it (funny how that works?). Old construction materials and plastic litter the creek, and I am so excited to help this nostalgic area.

One thing that has really surprised me about all of this is the sheer amount of people that are dedicated to helping the wildlife in Gwinnett County. Gwinnett County has three officials that focus on the creeks and rivers of the region, and their overall health. I have contacted all of them but unfortunately have not heard back. It would be very interesting to meet with them. Contacting people to help with this event has been exhausting, and more challenging than expected. A lot of these people have extremely busy schedules, and I have struggled with finding a certain time to meet with them to discuss my event. 

Even though it has been chaotic trying to contact a lot of different organizations to help out, I have been very much supported by a lot of different organizations. Of course, Atlanta Creek League has helped me immensely with certain people to contact. Hannah, the founder of ACL, is an amazing person and an extremely altruistic person. I have struggled a lot with getting in contact, and she has helped me immensely. She also has been kind enough to add Garner Ceek to the Atlanta Creek League website. Garner Creek Club, is the high school club that helps out the creek once and a while. It is interesting to work with them because when I was in high school, I participated in the exact same club. It was so nostalgic and pleasing to me that people are continuing to help this creek out. 

Overall, I am extremely excited to host my event! It is scheduled to be the day after Earth Day, and I am excited to hand out my project to volunteers. After this event, I would really like to continue to work with Atlanta Creek League. They are such an amazing organization and I could not use my time better. For all of you that are reading this, get in contact with them! They are enthusiastic and amazing if you would like to give back to a community. Attached below are some photos of the construction trash, and the creek itself. I hope you get inspired to check out your own creek!

Beginning my Creek Journey

by nalbaghdadi1

Recently, I began my work with the Atlanta Creek League by collaborating with Hannah Palmer, one of the minds behind the initiative, to begin building a local creek team. The Atlanta Creek League aims to engage communities in the Atlanta area with their local creeks in a fun and competitive way. By building creek teams and river divisions, communities across Georgia can find interactive and rewarding ways to be more aware of the natural world around them as well as improve the conditions of these critical water bodies. 

Many people live around creeks or have one just in their backyard, but may not know much about it. In fact, some creeks are not even named as a result of the lack of awareness about the local bodies of water around us. Prior to beginning my work with the Atlanta Creek League, I knew about the parks around me and the bodies of water (particularly lakes and rivers) that surrounded my house but I didn’t know much about the organizations that maintain them, the names of the creeks and rivers in my general watershed, nor the counties boundaries they cross over. As a matter of fact, I didn’t know much about creeks at all. Talking with Hannah and looking into the incredible work she and others involved with the Atlanta Creek League have done for our local watersheds made me all the more excited to learn about my own creek and how I can play a role in preserving it. Learning the importance of preserving watersheds beyond the borders of counties, cities, and legal jurisdictions dictated by maps really opened my eyes to how those boundaries can affect the livelihood of the creeks around us. I learned what my watershed is, how far it extends, the organizations that may be involved with its preservation, and how to start building a team for the creek. Here is a picture of the Little Mulberry Watershed that’s in my area, in case you haven’t seen it or heard about it before!


This watershed, like many others, connects so many different people from different cities, counties, and neighborhoods. I’m excited to start engaging the community with my local creek and have people meet each other and connect that would have otherwise never considered themselves a community with a shared regional feature or identity. I’m eager to begin with the projects I have planned out for my creek to raise awareness about and enact the preservation of Little Mulberry creeks and rivers. Beyond that, I’m happy that this initiative will also give communities around me an opportunity to connect with each other and collaborate on the bodies of water that sustain us and our environment. 

I can’t wait to update you guys again, hopefully with more faces in the pictures and another step towards creating a team for my creek!

Service Blog #7: Concrete Jungle

by vchordiya1

Hey everyone! I’m Viraj, and I have partnered up with Concrete Jungle this semester. In this blog, I would love to share my experience with the organization and the projects I undertook. Volunteering with Concrete Jungle was a big learning experience for me. During my time with Concrete Jungle, I worked on several projects that allowed me to contribute my skills and time to their mission. One of the most interesting and satisfying tasks I performed was analyzing their data and making sense of volunteer journeys using machine learning algorithms.

The first step in this project was to clean various datasets, merge them together, and conduct exploratory data analysis. This step helped me to understand the quality of data and identify general patterns. Next, I used deep learning algorithms to cluster similar journeys and identify patterns in volunteer behavior. This helped the organization understand how volunteers engage with the organization and identify areas for improvement.

Additionally, I volunteered for Freedom farmer’s market pickups every other Saturday with Elena. We collected left-over fresh produce from the Freedom farmer’s market and delivered it to a nearby soup kitchen called Intown Collaborative Ministries. It was a great opportunity to explore the market, talk to vendors, and meet many generous people. On average, we collected 30 pounds of fresh produce every other Saturday. This was a very rewarding experience because it allowed us to directly impact the community by ensuring that fresh, healthy food was not going to waste.

Finally, I also worked on the organization’s Doghead farm. I worked on terracing a slope on the farm with a few other volunteers. This involved leveling a hillside’s ground in sections so that the flat areas stack like stairs. This was a physically demanding task as we had to dig and unsoil the inclined part and level it with the flat portion of the farm, but it was incredibly satisfying to see the progress we made. It was also a great opportunity to connect with other volunteers and learn more about sustainable agriculture.

Overall, I believe that my engagement with this organization made a meaningful impact. By collecting and delivering fresh produce to soup kitchens, I was able to directly impact the community by providing healthy food to those in need. Additionally, by using my quantitative skills to help the organization analyze their data, I was able to provide valuable insights that will help them improve their volunteer engagement efforts. I believe that my final project can contribute to the organization in the future. For example, I was able to find some irregularities in the data collection process, which the organization can fix and would help them in the future. Moreover, the volunteer clustering algorithm I designed could help Concrete Jungle predict volunteer’s next move. Then the organization could explore various incentives to nudge volunteer behavior and maximize their full potential.  

Service Blog Post #5

by sflaucher1

   Hello, everyone! While reading through all the various posts about you guys’ volunteering experiences, I am ashamed to admit that mine has not been as active. Due to my busy schedule, I chose the “long hours once a month” route. However, I still had a lot of fun and met amazing people, and I would love to share some of my experiences.

   I volunteer at Dunwoody Nature Center, a non-profit organization that LOVES nature and works to improve Dunwoody Park, educate children and adults, and motivate environmental awareness. Thus, I have witnessed how this amazing organization works to achieve these goals. First, this organization has some of the most amazing people I have ever met. My Program and Community Engagement Manager, Lisha Wedderburn, helped me get familiar with the work and feel comfortable in a foreign environment. She introduced me to everyone at the organization, and they welcomed me with open arms.

  Now, for the part that probably everyone wants to hear about the most- the volunteer part. At first, I was helping with the “aftermath” of a children’s activity or preparing for future activities. For example, I helped set up tables, fixed them, cleaned the areas, prepared different props for children, and so on. Furthermore, I was able to experience how the organization helps children learn more about nature- I was more of an observer here, but I still found it extremely fun! Unfortunately, whenever I chose to volunteer, it was raining cats and dogs (haha, I could not help myself), so everything had to be done from the inside. I communicated with Darcy Johnson, an extremely fun young lady, and she has taken me to learn and do more marketing projects. Everything she had planned could not be done due to rainy days (blah); however, hopefully, this upcoming week will be sunny so that I can be involved in as many marketing projects as possible! This non-profit organization is amazing for students that want to have fun while helping.

P.S.: I have included a picture from last week’s rainy day.

 

Service Blog Post #6: Winding Down

by jreid47

Since I am not a Georgia native, I had no idea what to expect when Mrs. Palmer, the founder of Atlanta Creek League, suggested that we should explore Clear Creek, which is a part of the Chattahoochee River watershed. It was a fun experience to learn more about the creek and connect with those on the BeltLine who were not aware of which creek they were near. However, even though we were able to have fun, we were also able to find heavily littered areas in the city. One prominent example was the area under Piedmont Avenue Bridge in which I have an active case with the city for litter removal.  

Regarding the goals that were set out, Mrs. Palmer and I decided to set our focus on outreaching to local communities and businesses to be more conscious of water pollution as well as informing them of which creek one is located nearby by entering their address on the website. The act of easily locating which creek an individual lives near is the most interesting aspect of Atlanta Creek League due to the shocked expressions people have when they are able to name something they have always looked at. As mentioned before, we were able to meet with people on the BeltLine and it was humorous to see the sheer surprise on their faces. Moreover, not only is this aspect interesting since it takes a short amount of time, but it can also provide unexpected outcomes since an individual will be able to take the first steps in becoming involved in watershed issues and in contacting organizations that are dedicated to their creeks. 

My service assignment is informing my final project since I am getting a firsthand account of what I am promoting, a promotion of interest in one’s local creek, for my digital brochure. It is also informing my final project since I am mapping out where Clear Creek is and noting how crucial its protection is for Atlanta’s water to be safe. 

I would highly recommend Atlanta Creek League to anyone. In fact, I have already recommended the organization to individuals in my other organizations due to its important work and because the people I have worked with are extremely nice as well as caring. I would also recommend it due to the founder being highly efficient and passionate in her work. 

I do believe that I will dedicate more time in the future to serving this organization as I have made many connections with the people I have helped, and met, since we have a common cause. Additionally, I will dedicate more time to this organization since their work directly affects me as I have to use Atlanta’s water system that obtains its water through the Chattahoochee River and is connected to the surrounding creeks, which highlights its importance even more.