Thank you North Coast Church!

North Coast Church Volunteer Team at Thunder

At North County Community Services, we are very grateful for the volunteer projects North Coast Church has done for us over the years. Their intimate growth groups have helped paint murals, classrooms, cleaned, and gardened at various preschool sites with our organization. But this spring, they took their service to a new level with their Weekend of Service project.

Working on the Mural at Thunder Preschool

On April 27 and April 28, 2013, North Coast Church completed about 200 community service projects in North County San Diego, including two projects with North County Community Services. If you live in North County, you may have noticed their "North Coast Church Weekend of Service" signs popping up in front of schools, community centers, and nonprofits in the area. On Saturday and Sunday, they worked on projects at both our Thunder Preschool, as well as the Gardens and Preschool at North River Road. 

The Cleaning Team at North River Road

At our Thunder Preschool, they gave the site a complete face-lift! This included power-washing and painting the entire exterior of the building, as well as the inside entrance hall. They mulched the garden area, built new vegetable beds, and added dirt to existing garden beds. They repainted and improved the mural on site. They cleaned classrooms. They replaced our front sign. They were incredible! A complete photo album of the Thunder Preschool projects can be found here.

Young helpers carrying lumber for a trellis

At the Gardens and Preschool at North River Road, there was more gardening, and less painting. They did do some painting, including a wonderful welcome sign, and the alphabet, numbers, and tricycle tracks in the playground. Most volunteers helped in the garden, including building two shade trellises, 6 brand new garden beds, and tons (literally tons) of mulching. They also helped us dispose of all sorts of unusable garden waste. Thanks to North Coast Church (and all the volunteers who have helped in the past) the Gardens at North River Road now look the best they have ever! There was also plenty of weeding, replanting, and compost turning over the weekend.  They even helped revamp the small preschool garden on site. A complete photo album of the North River Road projects can be found here.

 

New sign at Thunder

New garden sign

From the staff, board, volunteers, and families served by North County Community Services, thank you North Coast Church for your Weekend of Service!

Earth Day Weekend Projects!

Ladybug in the garden

What a great Earth Day Weekend with North County Community Services! This weekend Callaway Golf, Cal Coast Academy, and Teen Volunteers in Action all did wonderful volunteer projects with us. We love volunteers and are happy when groups come out to give a helping hand, and we are especially thankful for these three groups because of all the materials they donated to complete the projects!

Callaway Golf volunteers at the end of their project.

On Saturday May 20th, Callaway Golf came to the Gardens at North River Road in Oceanside with about 20 volunteers, 120 pepper plants, soil amendment, and all the materials needed to build a new compost bin for North County's Food Bank! In two hours, they were able to plant five beds of peppers, and build a stacking compost bin system. The compost bins are made of cedar, which is naturally rot resistant (a great quality in a compost bin!). Callaway Golf completes community service projects every month, and it was a pleasure to be able to partner with them to make this month's project and earth-friendly one.

Our finished succulent garden at Balderrama Preschool!

In the afternoon on Saturday, Cal Coast Academy installed a succulent garden in the courtyard of our Balderrama preschool in Oceanside. Where there was once an unused box of sand, there is now a gorgeous, low water decorative garden. With the help of about a dozen volunteers, they unloaded three pickup trucks of dirt, leveled the ground, and planted many spike-free succulents and grasses. They even brought three cute garden statues to add to the fun! We are so grateful for Cal Coast Academy bringing this project together and going above and beyond coordinating materials and donations to make this dream garden a reality!

Cal Coast Academy volunteers unloading dirt.

Cal coast Academy Volunteers

TVIA volunteers planted 36 tomato plants

Vegetable markers by TVIA

On Sunday, Teen Volunteers in Action brought out 17 volunteers, including teens and parents, to work at the Gardens at North River Road in Oceanside. They brought with them soil amendment, and enough tomatoes seedlings to plant three beds of tomatoes. They also brought paint markers to finish vegetable stake markers for our gardens! It was great to have garden work weeding, amending soil, and planting tomatoes for the teenagers, and a fun artsy project for the parents in the shade. We are looking forward to a big tomato harvest this summer!

Spring is here!

The harvest mural at the Balderrama Preschool is almost finished!

This NCCS preschool garden in Oceanside had a great season!

Spring is in the air! It is a great time for volunteer projects with North County Community Services. We have many groups scheduled for spring volunteer projects like cleaning, gardening, painting, and sprucing up! We are especially looking forward to volunteer projects with North Coast Church at two different sites for their Weekend of Service event. They will be giving one of our preschools a whole face-lift, as well as helping at the Gardens at North River Road. Look out for before and after pictures coming soon! We also have spring projects scheduled with Kids Korps, the Navy, Immersion, Callaway Golf, Teen Volunteers in Action, Life Technologies, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and Genentech.

Preschoolers planting a spring Garden

Although we have lots of volunteer groups scheduled, we do have more projects available for the right group! If you are interested in volunteering, you can always contact Abby at volunteer@sdnccs.org to see what is available with NCCS! We do volunteer projects all year round, but spring is such a great time to do projects because it is usually not too hot and not too cold. 

Spring means we are harvesting lots of winter vegetables before they turn bitter in the heat (volunteers picked 21 lbs of lettuce yesterday from the Gardens at North River Road!). We are also getting summer vegetables started- peppers, beans, cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, and melons love some heat, and can all be planted now through at least June. HAPPY GARDENING AND HAPPY VOLUNTEERING!!!

Fall Harvest Mural Completed!

George! The fall harvest kid!

 A big thanks to Oak Hills Covenant Church of Vista, CA who spent Saturday, August 25 at the NCCS operated Balderrama Preschool in Oceanside. The big project they worked on was the "Fall" section of a 4-part, seasons themed harvest mural. Twenty three volunteers from the church brought paint, brushes, and their able bodies to paint the mural, as well as clean all of our playground equipment, repaint tricycle tracks in the playground, and sand and paint a picnic table. The scrubbed and hosed walls and slides, put artistic touches on the pavement in the playground, and worked on sprucing up the preschool any way they could think of. The volunteers stayed for about 3 hours cleaning and painting. We are so appreciative of Oak Hills Covenant Church for donating both their time and materials to make the preschool a safer, healthier, and more beautiful place for our teachers and students.

Volunteers working on the mural.

Volunteers geared up to start painting!

The students at the preschool absolutely love the mural! The mural features a young boy holding a basket of fall seasonal produce- apples, pears, grapes, and avocados. More grapes and large pumpkins grow near his side. The preschoolers have already affectionately named this character "George". We can't wait to see what they name the Winter, Spring, and Summer harvest friends!

Jesus Martinez working on the finishing touches!

NCCS would also like to thank Jesus Martinez for volunteering to create this mural from design to finishing touches.Jesus is a wonderful local artist, graphic designer, and muralist. If you are interested in supporting his work, he can be reached by email.

Do you have a group interested in improving one of our  sites? 
We can accommodate groups of 5-50 volunteers, and have a range of projects from simply cleaning, to interior painting, murals, and garden projects. For current group (or individual) volunteer opportunities, email Abby at volunteer@sdnccs.org or call her at 760-471-5483.

The full mural. The pillars built into the walls were incorporated into the mural as tree trunks, separating the seasons.

Summer Gardening at North County's Food Bank

Planting tomato seedlings

We have a beautiful summer garden planted at North County's Food Bank! We would like to give a HUGE thank you to Prescription Solutions by OptumRx for doing this great project! Not only did they volunteer to amend the soil and plant new seedlings, but they donated all of the materials that this project required. With 22 volunteers, they were able to get the garden planted quickly, as well as help out inside the warehouse at North County's Food Bank, and replant flower containers in our front entrance.

Prepping the soil for planting

OptumRx volunteers did this project on Wednesday, July 11. If you remember, this was one of the hottest days this summer in San Diego County! I am thankful and impressed they kept up good spirits and hard work despite the heat. All five garden beds were planted- one with a variety of peppers, one with a variety of tomatoes, one with cucumbers, one with melon, and one with watermelon. Thanks again OptumRx!

Everything is planted!

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~