The Lumberjack



Students Serving The Cal Poly Humboldt Campus and Community Since 1929

Tag: volunteer

  • César Chavez Day with YES

    César Chavez Day with YES

    by Eddie Carpenter

    In honor of César Chavez Day, the YES program hosted a volunteer event at the Potawot Community Food Garden in Arcata. It had an amazing turnout with a whopping 40 volunteers in attendance, caressed by the sunny blue skies and the refreshing Humboldt breeze.

    We were assigned tasks by being divided into five groups. I was grateful to be a part of a group that planted beds of squash. We did everything from scratch, laying out layers of black cover material across the four rows to keep the weeds from robbing the plants of their nutrients. We also covered the tops of the rows with white cloth.

    Gardening skills have practical value in my daily life. Prior to this experience, I had been a volunteer at Potawot through a program called the Intertribal Agriculture Council. Potawat’s head gardener Ed Mata gave me a handbook about gardening and I was mentored by a professional development specialist named Elaini Vargas.

    Maybe I was a little rusty on the terminology, but basic knowledge about soil health has since been ingrained into the recesses of my brain. I learned in a soils class that if you live in a mild climate, it’s estimated that it took 200 to 400 years for 1 centimeter of the soil to form. Vargas’ and Mata’s teachings directly impacted the mindset I had going into the YES serve-a-thon on César Chavez Day.

    Youth Educational Services (YES) is a collective on campus that provides students with opportunities to volunteer at local school and community sites. One of their goals is to connect hands-on service and in-class learning with awareness of the injustices and oppressions experienced by those they serve. Actions sometimes speak louder than words. Making donations and saying nice things about a cause is totally different from donating your time and bodily energy to a cause.

    According to mentalhealth.org, helping others can possibly help make you happier as a person. Through volunteering, I was able to make temporary connections through teamwork and group communication. This gave me a sense of community and made me feel like I belonged to a noble cause.

    If you want to see change in your self-esteem, you might want to consider doing good deeds, so we can manifest the world into a better place. Indeed, an outward reflection of finding happiness can in turn make you a happy person.

  • Digging in the Dunes

    Digging in the Dunes

    Making a difference in the dunes by hand, plant-by-plant

    Volunteers visited the Manila Dunes in Arcata Feb. 15 to tug invasive grasses from the sands in a monthly gathering facilitated by Friends of the Dunes. The volunteers of all ages from youthful college students to gray-haired, retired locals removed beach grass to allow native plants to repopulate the dunes.

  • CCAT Volunteer Fridays

    CCAT Volunteer Fridays

    By Chelsea Wood

    Getting your hands dirty never felt so gratifying, but for volunteers at Humboldt State University’s Campus Center for Appropriate Technology, otherwise known as CCAT, the satisfaction of hand-to-earth action persists each Friday, Chelsea Wood reports.

  • Career & Volunteer Expo offers job opportunities

    Career & Volunteer Expo offers job opportunities

    The West Gym at Humboldt State held the annual Career & Volunteer Expo on Feb. 15. Employers’ tables were placed systematically in rows, a photographer took free headshots for prospective employees and there was a designated table for students to fill out applications.

    Studio art major Sam Donnell usually drops three hundred dollars on one class for initial art supplies. That amount doesn’t include extra art supplies over the course of the semester.

    “I’ll take any job,” Donnell said. “I need art supply money.”

    Mike Orr, Mad River Park supervisor, graduated from Humboldt State and said almost 100 percent of his recruitment comes from HSU.

    Orr said HSU has changed over the years and such expos were not around in his day.

    “I wish they had this when I was a student, because when you’re a student, you don’t know to access the information,” Orr said.

    Social work and Spanish major Ana Monjaras works for the Academic and Career Advising Center. Monjaras helped create handouts and greeted guests at the expo.

    “It’s really fun and helpful,” Monjaras said. “We are the first ones to know who’s coming.”

    HSU alum and administrative support coordinator Shannon Berge has been part of the Academic and Career Advising Center since 2005.

    “We really do try to get as many types of major jobs as possible to have a nice well-rounded fair,” Berge said.

    HSU alum Amy Martin is the job development coordinator for the academic center. Martin worked for the center when she was a student, but now she coordinates it.

    “It’s much bigger than it was when I started a long time ago,” Martin said.

    Martin works with the Humboldt Chamber of Commerce and national recruiters to bring opportunities to the students.

    “People reach out to us all year,” Martin said. “I keep a list. We have huge databases of the employers in and around the area. [There] are lots of different ways to recruit.”

    The expo had 115 employers this year. Local employers were present, such as the North Coast Co-op, the Arcata Playhouse and Coast Central Credit Union.

    “Seeing all the tables, the students networking and making connections with the employers is the best part,” Martin said.

  • Yes! The Y.E.S. House is open

    Yes! The Y.E.S. House is open

    By|Michelle Meyers

    Thursday, Aug. 31, the Youth Educational Services house on campus, Y.E.S. House, held their open house for students and other members of the community to come and see what the Y.E.S. House has to offer.

    DSC_0094.jpg
    Photo credit: Michelle Meyers

    The Y.E.S. House is a completely student run program of the Associated Students of Humboldt State University and is under the department of Student Affairs. Since 1968, the Y.E.S. House has played a vital role in supporting students in becoming active members in their community and initiating social change by creating and implementing volunteer programs that serve the needs of the community.

    This Way.jpg
    Chalk leading the way to the yes house. Photo credit: Michelle Meyers

    Currently, there are 13 different volunteer programs at Y.E.S. and each of them works with a different population within our local community. Their purpose is to offer support for any kind of needs they may have that arise.

    New Games is one of the programs at The Y.E.S. and has been around since 1991. Cori Simons, a Child Development major at HSU and the newest Program Director of New Games explains that the program was created with the intention to promote “non-violence, non-competitiveness in children, and positive relationships between college students and children” through a wide range of team building games.

    Cori Simons- New Games Program Director.jpg
    Cori Simons, New Games Program Director. Photo credit: Michelle Meyers

    Simons said that New Games is still seeking volunteers and will eventually be hosting rummage sales and games days on the quad.

    “We play a lot of improv games,” Simons said.

    Cindy Xiong, freshman Wildlife major at HSU said that she stopped by the Y.E.S. House during her freshman seminar after her professor instructed her group to ask around and see what the campus has to offer.

    “They told us about all of these different volunteer opportunities, and some of them interested me,” said Xiong, “As a Wildlife major, I wanted to do something that involved being outdoors.”

    Xiong, who signed a volunteer slip, also expressed interest in the Environmental Education Program at the Y.E.S House.

    Critical Race, Gender and Sexuality Studies major Oliver Winfield-Perez is the new Program Consultant at the Y.E.S House. He first joined as a volunteer for the Queer Mentoring and Advocacy Program because he wanted to work with queer youth in the community.

    “Once I joined I found a very close knit sense of community within Y.E.S, I found friends,” said Winfield-Perez.

    During his experience at the Y.E.S House working as a volunteer in the community and within his program, he said that he was able to develop certain professional skills, leadership skills,and social skills, which gave him the motivation to become a director for that program and then eventually apply for a position as Program Consultant.

    “This year our theme is Empowerment and Activate,” said Winfield-Perez.

    Winfield-Perez said his biggest role as the program consultant and the main focus of the Y.E.S. House is to promote community organizing on and off campus. They are also working to make HSU more inclusive.

    “We are also really trying to support our student leaders, foster leadership, foster professional skills and communication skills within our students,” Winfield-Perez said, “and also create a sense of community and a support system for students on campus.”

    According to Winfield-Perez, a good amount of students at HSU who have to fill a certain amount of hours for service learning come to the Y.E.S House to help meet that requirement.

    “We’re really into service learning. Through our work of engagement within the community, we’re experiencing all of these things, so when we come back to the meetings, they reflect on what happened during times when they were in the community, what they enjoyed, what could be worked on, and then we take that knowledge and try to just apply it in different settings and, or apply it in the future,” said Winfield-Perez.

    To submit a volunteer application with the Y.E.S House, you can complete the online volunteer contract located on their website.

    http://www2.humboldt.edu/yes/

    How to Contact The Y.E.S. House

    House 91
    Humboldt State University
    Arcata, California 95521
    Phone: (707) 826-4965
    Fax: (707) 826-5558

    E-mail: yes@humboldt.edu

  • Lumberjacks continue to spread peace

    Lumberjacks continue to spread peace

    By Geneva Peppars

    Humboldt State made the Peace Corps list of Top Volunteer-Producing Colleges for the tenth year in a row.  This year HSU ranked fifth on the list of medium size colleges for its current 33 alumnus volunteering around the world. Since 1961, 841 Lumberjacks have served as volunteers, according to Humboldt Now.

    Kayla Mesangale, graduated from HSU  May 2015, and is currently serving in Timor-Leste, a 15 year-old country in Southeast Asia. She is apart of the first group back in the country since the Peace Corps evacuation in 2006 due to civil unrest.

    “Peace corps was in Timor from 2002 ,when they won their independence to 2006. I’m apart of the first group of volunteers since the evacuation in 2006. We arrived 2015.”

    She graduated from HSU with a degree in child development. Now she works as  a community development volunteer in Timor Leste.

    “Basically we are reestablishing the [Peace Corps] program and building relationships and trust with the locals,” Mesangale said. “Our focus is nutrition, water sanitation, agriculture and business, but we all do a variety of different projects. Really whatever our communities need.”

    Charles Truong also graduated from Humboldt State in 2015 with a degree in kinesiology education and he is currently living in rural Fiji. Truong teaches physical education and life skills at a nearby high school. Truong participated in throwing events for the HSU track and field teams and now coaches track and field throwing events in Fiji.

    Charles Truong said the ability to bring his students outside of their villages is a highlight for him.

    “Seeing the impact it had on all of my students was a proud moment for myself because I know I had sparked something inside of them. Now, in the new school year, I see the students more open and willing to try new things. It makes me proud that I could just be part of their growth,” Truong said.

    Katie Sidel served in Zambia for after she graduated in 2013 with a degree in Environmental science ecological restoration before she returned in March of 2016. Sidel worked as a  forestry extension agent where she promoted income generating activities such as beekeeping. Sidel also educated kids on malaria and HIV and planted trees for multipurpose such as cropping and nitrogen fixation. Sidel knows many HSU alumni Peace Corp volunteers and even ran into one she went to school with at a music festival in East Africa.

    “I met another PCV in Malawi who I went to HSU with”, Katie said. “We randomly met at a music festival in Malawi. [A]HSU alumni who would’ve thought”.

    Kayla’s advice to HSU students or alumni contemplating signing up to volunteer is to not romanticize the decision.

    “Really think about it realistically. It’s important not to romanticize it, because this will be one of the most challenging experiences, from loneliness and explosive diarrhea to harassment and  health problems” said Kayla. “ But ultimately, this will be a worthwhile and life changing experience. The relationships you build with people and the little changes you have an impact on, are worth it all”

    “If you’re willing to challenge yourself and sacrifice many of your privileges to grow, then Peace Corps is for you,” said Charles Truong. “The experience, relationships, and lessons you learn are all worth the hardships”

    If you are interested in learning more about joining the Peace Corps, the Humboldt State recruiter, Barbara Smith will be on campus holding an application workshop on April 21.