Volunteer Project
Arundel Swim Club is my second home. It’s where I first learned to swim. It’s where I made my very first friends. It provided me with my first job.
It’s a place where tons of people hang out in the summer, cool off when it gets really hot, and see people they don’t often get to throughout the winter months. But Arundel is also part of the environment.
It easily contains the most acreage in the development and is the first thing you see when entering it. The community around it actively partakes in environmental efforts because of the Club’s efforts.
On March 25th, 2017 I trudged out of my bed at 8 am and drove to the pool where the annual clean up kicked off. I walked through the gates of the pool to see little kids scattered across the grounds holding flowers, flowerpots, rakes, trowels, and other gardening tools. Some adults were tilling the playground, other were building a shed from donated materials. When I walked in I helped with the building of the shed. We rummaged through donated 2 x 4’s and other wood scraps that would make for a solid foundation for what seemed like forever. When we laid out the pieces that we would need one step at a time, nail by nail, we rebuilt and replaced the clubs shed that occupies the farthest east point of the fence line.
After we built the shed I helped kids with collecting rocks for the fence line. In-between the concrete deck and the fence we have a solid row of rock that we collect from the neighborhood. With a passé of 12 kids ranging from 10 years old to 23 years old, we scouted the neighborhood streets picking up displaced pebbles and rocks near the gutters or in the middle of the streets. This proves to be one of the best parts of the cleanup because everyone is collecting rocks and cleaning up the neighborhood streets making it safe for through traffic.
Next part of the cleanup is painting flowerpots and planting our annual flowers. All age groups gather in the grass to decorate flowerpots, share fertilizer, and either pot or plant annual flowers. Some plant along the pavilion, others pot their plants and scatter them around the club. After an hour or so we have dozens of new plants and soil planted around the club to soften the juxtaposition of concrete and earth.
While we plant others are constructing our signs for different parts of the club. We make our signs out of recycled ones donated to the club. In previous years we had handcrafted bamboo signs that were pieces of wood donated from someone’s leftover kitchen remodel. When I walked into the bathroom, we have donated shower curtains and rubber mats made from old tires being placed in the showers. A group of dads are working from the same donated wood for the shed to construct new baby changing tables; with wives eager to decorate them with padding and leftover fabric they’ve collected from members after they’ve finished.
My brothers were in the pool itself cleaning and repainting the lines of the pool. A few others guards and I were cleaning out the snack bar, organizing the fridges compartments for different fruits and vegetables that we sell in the summer.
At the end of the day, with all the volunteers, we got a lot of hard work done. Coming together as a community literally is what keeps are pool in the amazing state its in. Without the generous amount of donations and collective hard work the pool wouldn’t be nearly as great or have lasted as long as it has. For a small community pool it thrives because of the community that surrounds it.
Our community does a great job of setting an example for surrounding communities to take an active position within the environment. With our pool being smaller than surrounding pools, what makes us stand out is the atmosphere and our environment. We are known for our rich landscape decorated with colorful flowers, fresh mulch, and thick grass that you can run in on bare feet and not worry about splinters or getting stung.
Arundel takes pride in its awesome incorporation of the environment in its facility. It is what makes us stand out from every other local community pool. I am very glad to have been exposed to, and work within, an institution that values the environment this much. I am now one of the key members that leads the way in supporting environmental inclusion and protection for the facility.
Sources:
http://environmentjournal.online/articles/the-upside-to-upcycling/
