fountain community garden work day

Continuing with our recent theme of “why not now?” my boyfriend and I finally decided to get serious about volunteer work instead of just talking about it in a “one day” fashion.  All it took was a quick google search and up popped a site called LAworks.com.  It is a really comprehensive and nicely designed site which is an instant draw for me.  We both registered, which is free and only took about two minutes, and signed up for an event taking place the next day.  Still new to the volunteer scene we started off easy and chose a project that was literally getting our hands dirty.  That comes more naturally to us then say, working with at-risk youth or teaching adults how to read.  The site does incorpaorate all the above and much more, so we’ll work our way up to the more challenging tasks.

Anyway, back to the task at hand.  The project we chose is called “Fountain Community Garden Work Day” where they are taking an abondoned lot and turning it into a garden for the community.  When we got there they had us sign up for a specific job and we decided on coating garden beds with water sealant.  Other choices were weed pulling, tree planting, building garden beds, or building a shed.  As is the case with a lot of “easy” volunteer work, the turnout was huge, at least 100 people, and our group got through painting the finished garden beds rather quickly.  The last thing my boyfriend and I wanted was to be standing around, so we took charge of placing the newly built garden beds in place as they were completed.  This was way more fun for us anyway, the perfectionists that we are enjoyed measuring the exact distance between one bed and the next and seeing the plot look more and more like the colored pencil drawn blueprint with every one we set.

By the end of the day I was covered in water sealant, remanants of it remaining on my hands for days afterward, but it was all worth it.  We are happy to have had a positive experience on our first go because now it has encouraged us to keep going, both with LAworks and other organizations too.

If you are in the LA/Hollywood area and want to check out the garden, it is supposed to be finished later this month.

5620 Fountain Avenue
(at St. Andrews)
Los Angeles, CA 90028

UPDATE:  Click here to read about day two at the garden and watch the ABC News segment to learn more about the project.