Seize the Carp!

While our annual volunteer extravaganza "Carpe Diem" had absolutely nothing to do with seizing carp, as most of our event fliers and advertisements would have you believe, it did have everything to do with accomplishing a great deal of volunteer service learning in the form of many projects in a single morning. In case you missed this year's ELC "Carpe Diem"(Seize the Day) Volunteer Day, we've created this post to help you experience much of what went down while you were asleep the morning of Apri 17th, 2010.

The began early on a cold Saturday morning as ELC staff frantically prepared final arrangements for the volunteer crews arriving later that morning. Coffee flowed freeley from the ten gallon containers ,courtesy of Starbucks Coffee, and staff members mixed over breakfast snacks donated by local Sunflower Market. Bossman Brett Bruyere, seen here, administered yellow head protection to staff members in order to both foster a false sense of safety and set staff apart from the rest of the crowd.

Nicole TimmonsStafford works furiously to count volunteers as they arrive, over 150 volunteers were recorded at this year's Carpe Diem event.

Volunteer groups from both Colorado State University and the Fort Collins community participated in the various service projects throughout the morning.

Groups were assigned to projects such as trail construction and maintenance, native tree and shrub planting, removal of an old bridge, the construction of a nature viewing area, removal of invasive species, and a river access trail.

Additional projects took place in the compost, greenhouse, and organic garden preparing seedlings and irrigation lines for Spring and Summer.

Groups met at noon for lunch ,provided by Pudge Brothers Pizza, for a brief break from service learning and to reorganize volunteers to projects that would need more help in the afternoon.

Two former CSU Alternative Break groups, one CSUnity group of Collegiate Scholars, CSU Greeks from Pi Beta Phi and Kappa Sigma, students fro Natural Resources Recreation and Tourism Class 331, and a multitude of good-hearted individuals and families mingled over cheap pizza refreshments before returning for the second half of the service day.

Below(left), volunteers work to break new trail in the place of an old and rotting bridge.

Above(right), volunteers dig up Canada Thistle along the Wetland Wonder trail at the ELC.

Overall, "Carpe Diem" 2010 went as well as it could have. Plenty of volunteers participated despite forecasts of snow and rain, and nearly every project was completed before the end of the day when the weather began to turn. Members of the ELC staff would like to thank our donors, local community volunteers, and CSU students for their help in making this year's "Carpe Diem" celebration a success!