prAna in the garden!

prAna volunteers after a hard days work!

North County Community Services was delighted to have a wonderful volunteer group come to the Gardens at River Road on Friday! The Carlsbad based clothing company prAna brought out a huge crew of volunteers to do a massive day of hard work in the garden! They were able to accomplish so much in a few short hours, and we are so very thankful for the hard work, wonderful and positive attitudes, creativity, and leadership the team brought. Their accomplishments included:

• Planting 6 dwarf fruit trees- all citrus!
• Weeding community garden plots, now ready for planting
• Massive clean-up of compost piles, trash piles, leveling ground, and general beautification
• Staining picnic tables for the garden
• Painting beautiful signs for vegetables, fruit trees, compost, and more
• Finished all the summer plantings for the "North End" of the Gardens at River Road- the half of the garden that produces for our preschool programs and North County's Food Bank.
• Installing 4 new community garden beds- now ready for rent!

It is amazing what we can accomplish as a community when we work together! Thank you prAna for making North County San Diego a better place to live! We hope you can join us again next year!

A bird friend hiding in the flowers.

Welcome to Summer!

Life Technologies Global Volunteer Day May 4 2012

You can feel it in the air, summer is here in San Diego! The gardens are growing fast, North County's Food Bank is doing great, and many of our preschoolers are getting ready to graduate soon! We have had a tremendous amount of volunteer support recently, and I wish we had room to personally thank the 700+ volunteers that have contributed to improving their community through volunteer projects with North County Community Services so far this year. Recently, volunteers have been involved in the following projects:

• In June, North Coast Church helped repaint the inside of one of the preschools we operate in Oceanside. It looks wonderful and pictures are to come soon!
• North County Community Services was featured in The Coast News! Here is the article!
• Volunteers helped collect donations at the National Association of Letter Carriers food drive in May. We had a record number of donations for this particular food drive, and North County's Food Bank is now well stocked with canned and dry food!
• Also in May, Life Technologies volunteered at the Gardens at River Road as one of the projects in their Global Volunteer Day. Not only did they bring 60 volunteers, but they also helped us with supplies including tons of mulch, compost, new plants, and new tools! 
• In April the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints brought the most volunteers to the Gardens at River Road on record at one time- 105 volunteers total! Lots of them were kids, and everyone had tons of fun!

Volunteers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints April 21 2012

We don't have room to Thank all of our volunteers, but I would like to at least thank all of the groups that have volunteered so far in 2012: 

Walz Group

USMC 9th Comm Bn

Tri City Christian School

Tariq Khamisa Foundation

Taiwanese Presbyterian Church

Redlands Adventist Academy

Pomona College Alternabreak

Pilgrim UCC

Northrop Grumman

North Coast Church

Marines MWSS-372 MT Company

Life Technologies

Junior League of San Diego

Immersion

High Tech High

Hewlett-Packard

Girl scouts

Escondido USDA NRS

CSUSM Golden Key Club

Coca-Cola

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Calvary Chapel Vista Women's Ministry

California Conservation Corps

Bank of America 24 Hour Fitness

Thank you one and all for volunteering!

~Abby Weglarz~

~North County Community Services~

~Garden Program & Volunteer Coordinator~