Monday March 19, 2012

Today’s service activity was gardening for the Atlanta Community Food Bank. When I say gardening, I mean picking weeds out of plots that will eventually turn into gardens. Our job at first seemed to have little worth in the overall issue of hunger and homelessness because most of us simply weeded plots for four hours. The point was to prep the gardens for planting in order to grow food for the food bank. The pollen count was high, the sun was hot, and the weeds seemed endless. Some of us may have been wondering if our service was actually making a difference on the issue of urban poverty, but at the time I did not think too deeply into the magnitude of our impact and instead found peace in the warmth and nature. It was later after group reflection that I really began to think about our purpose. Practically no one who will actually benefit from the food bank will have any idea that a group of 14 members of the University of Maryland spent hours weeding the garden, but does that mean we had no impact? Gardens need to be weeded before new plants are planted in order to ensure a sustainable environment for optimal growth. Once rid of weeds, the seeds in the garden share the resources of water, soil, and oxygen in order to cooperatively grow and live. Some weeds in the garden were more deeply rooted than others and required extra force on my part to uplift them and I realized that all weeds, or barriers, are of different caliber and have different effects. The weeds in our communities and societies are often so deeply rooted that the force needed to uproot them seems impossible. Oppression is one of the deepest-rooted weeds. This weed interferes with the access to all of the resources needed for growth and life. Weeding the gardens taught me that although the weeds seemed endless, my impact was to relieve some of the oppression that would have inhibited the growth of the plants. There will always be weeds in our communities and environments, but it is important to understand that wherever we are planted dictates the weeds that surround us. This was a learning experience for me and helped me to understand privilege versus oppression. I am excited to spread my knowledge and continue being a force in uprooting weeds in communities in order to enable equal opportunities for life and growth.