Students help community members with household chores

By Gus Bode

Students from Allen Residence Hall work vegetable plots at Sufi Park

Nicole Saylor rallied 11 students from the Allen residence halls to weed, rake and lay mulch for nearly three hours at Sufi Park in an effort to make Carbondale feel cozier.

“We’re trying to not make this a college-town and more of a hometown,” said Saylor, a resident adviser for Allen Two.

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Saylor, a sophomore studying secondary education from Chicago, said she and other resident advisers worked to get as many students as possible to come out and help.

Volunteers maintain Sufi Park, a community park owned by Diyemi Tariqat, an Islamic community. The park’s 14 vegetable plots, which are open to the public, needed preparation for spring planting.

It was the first time Amy Petty, a freshmen studying physical therapy from Effingham, had volunteered, she said.

Although numerous bug bites had popped up on her legs, Petty said it was a good experience and she planned to volunteer again.

The Sufi Park restoration was one of seven locations worked on by nearly 60 student volunteers as part of Keep Carbondale Beautiful. The volunteers also visited the Women’s Center to landscape and the homes of Carbondale residents to assist with household chores.

“It’s not so much disabled, its just that they are unable to do [the work] themselves, or they are rebuilding together,” Tiffany Heil, executive director of Keep Carbondale Beautiful, said.

Heil said she approached the park about student volunteers because two of the park caretakers are out with severe illnesses.

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Chuck Paprocki, outreach coordinator for the park, said there are only three people keeping up the 14 plots, as well as numerous flower beds and trees, and that the student volunteers were an invaluable service.

“This will be a great thing for preparing the beds for the spring,” he said as he loaded a wheelbarrow with mulch. “The students come out and give [the gardens] a little boost.”

The vegetable gardens, a rarity in public parks, were established to help plot owners become more reliant and to teach skills to the larger community, Paprocki said.

Frances Ganzekaufer, garden coordinator since the park’s founding eight years ago, said the upkeep of the park and vegetable plots are educational to the community members.

Ganzekaufer offers composting and organic gardening classes in the spring, she said.

“It’s not just for our little community, it’s for people outside the community,” she said.

Candy Davis, a Carbondale resident who lives on Bridge Street, said she often stops at Sufi Park to enjoy the shade while out on her morning walks.

“It’s a lovely little sanctuary – sort of a surprise little haven,” she said.

Reporter Haley Murray can be reached at [email protected]

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