The Farm is in Full Circle

Key Club helps with garden cleanup and compost work

%28From+Left%29+Senior+Sylvia+Rodriguez%2C+Junior+Eugenia+Lee%2C+and+Senior+Natalie+Chow+help+gather+seeds+for+harvesting+

Photo by Indira Cockerill

(From Left) Senior Sylvia Rodriguez, Junior Eugenia Lee, and Senior Natalie Chow help gather seeds for harvesting

Full Circle Farm received Key Club volunteers working in the education garden with cleanup and compost work on Jan. 14.

According to their website, Full Circle Farm is an urban education farm project of Sustainable Community Gardens, which is a community-based nonprofit corporation dedicated to the renewal of local, sustainable food.

Project Chair and senior Eugenia Lee said she chose to volunteer at the event because she was inspired by other HHS service clubs. She also said the event was easy to plan and local.

Attending volunteers took part in various activities, such as harvesting, planting, weeding, composting, digging and more according to FullCircleFarm.

From observation, most of the volunteers started off harvesting seeds which would be reused to plant later, while one volunteer watered plants and learned about nutrients in plants.    

“The Farm Circle, when I looked at it, seemed really interesting because I haven’t ever been to a garden or a farm, so I just wanted to learn [about] agriculture and stuff,” freshman volunteer Andrew Wang said.

Wang said his favorite part of volunteering was learning about the farm and how to actually give plants nutrients.

‘’[The instructor] made his own compost and showed me what he put inside it [which] was really interesting,” Wang said.

The education garden has partners such as Santa Clara Unified School District, the Stanford Prevention Research Center and Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara, who benefit from the garden, stated their website.

But the families and volunteers benefit just as much from volunteer experience and learning about sustainable food systems, according to FullCircleFarm website.  

“[I want volunteers to] know that service events are not necessarily boring and to switch [things] up and have fun while still helping out the community,” Lee said.

Lee said her favorite part during the event was talking to the members one-on-one since it was a small group of volunteers, and being able to talk to the fellow officer and being able to bond through volunteering.