SJCOE One Stewards
Bring Stanislaus
Day Use Park to Life

Revisiting the Riverside Day Use Area that Stockton’s San Joaquin ONE School had worked at last spring, Stanislaus National Forest Interpretive Specialist Phyllis Ashmead felt the love for student volunteers.

“Because of the work these students have done consecutively last Spring and this Autumn, this park is finally being used by the right kind of visitors,” said Ashmead on the morning of December 3, 2007. Previously, the site was overgrown with blackberry vines and other invasive species, including incense cedars, which disallowed a healthy variety of flora on the forest floor. Ashmead quickly pointed out that a site that seems un-kept will usually be mistreated by visitors.

So the cycle of stewardship continued behind the lead of teacher Amelia Ramirez and her WildLink students. Volunteers picked blackberry vines out of a specific section of streambank to improve accessibility for visitors. At the end of the day, a Forest Ranger working on a fire brigade led a tutorial on how to burn green material at a restoration site. By count, over 20 square meters were cleared of nasty blackberry thorns.

WildLink Ambassador Harley brought her peers, Nicole , Phil , and Michael.