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Colonial Forge 'Learn and Serve' students planted trees to restore area along river.
Colonial Forge High seniors Lori Owen (left) and Torri Allen plant a tree near Stafford's Rocky Pen reservoir.
Colonial Forge junior Pamela Njioh (right) and Friends of the Rappahannock volunteer Olivia Reed fill a bucket to water new plantings.
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By RUSTY DENNEN
Danny Giambattista and three classmates wrestled the hefty root ball of a red cedar into a hole on a slope overlooking the Rappahannock River.
Armed with shovels and rakes, they packed soil around the base of the 4-foot tree, admiring their handiwork.
Planting is something Giambattista, a Colonial Forge High School junior, has done before.
"My dad does a lot of landscaping," he said.
Others were tackling it for the first time. One girl warned her helpers: "Hey! Don't put your hands in there. I'm gonna, like, shovel your fingers off."
About 36 students in the school's Learn and Serve America class helped the Friends of the Rappahannock on Wednesday with a conservation project at Stafford County's Rocky Pen Run Reservoir site.
"I just like to help out with the community and I thought this would be a fun class," said Giambattista, 16, who lives in Austin Ridge. "And I thought it would look good on college transcripts."
Nearby, Jasmine Brown and Torri Allen, both seniors, were packing dirt around the base of a seedling.
"It was cool, and kind of hard," Allen said. "I didn't expect all the things we had to do."
Over several hours, the students planted 80 trees--holly, cedar, black gum, sycamore, white oak, chestnut oak and northern oak--to screen an equipment building from view along the Rappahannock's Stafford shore. The reservoir project required cutting trees at the intake point.
"We spoke with the county about our interest in seeing a better visual buffer and put together a restoration plan," said John Tippett, FOR executive director.
"This is a great opportunity for kids to experience what it means to do a restoration."
Last year, the Learn and Serve class planted 1,400 seedlings at Austin Grove farm.
The reservoir planting project was done with a $2,400 grant from Stafford County. Virginia Paving Co. provided an augur to dig holes in the hard, rocky soil.
Soon, much of the area south of U.S. 17 near Berea will be a construction zone. The reservoir's dam and water-treatment plant will be finished over the next three years. Water will be pumped out of the river into the reservoir during times of high flow.
The student "stream team" worked with FOR to design the restoration project in the classroom before heading out to the river.
"Our goal is to better our community in a variety of ways--environmental education, citizenship, human needs. We're always looking for ways to help," said Susan Easter, who teaches the Learn and Serve class at Colonial Forge.
"It's not a community service class. It's about researching a need, doing the research, writing an action plan and carrying it out."
The elective class is for sophomores, juniors and seniors. They must log at least 70 hours' service. With 100 hours, they receive a presidential service award.
The county and organizations such as FOR benefit.
Students sign up for the course, Easter said, "because they hear it's fun."
"It's not your typical structured class. It's so different than any other course in high school. And they get to meet so many people in the community," she said.
"A lot of kids start networks through the class to benefit them in the future. Kids who do service learning in high school continue it it college and careers."
Friends of the Rappahannock, riverfriends.orgRusty Dennen: 540/374-5431
Email: rdennen@freelancestar.com
Learn and Serve America is a component of the Corporation for National and Community Service. The independent federal agency, created in 1993 under President Clinton, connects Americans of all ages and backgrounds with opportunities for service to their communities and the nation.
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