Community Service at GFA: Sherwood Island Clean-up

Note: This article was originally written for the January 2020 edition of the Beachside Press.

By Sam Lublinsky '22

From November to December of 2019, Mr. Guffin and Mr. Meatto’s advisories participated in the “Sherwood Island Clean-up” segment of community service projects at GFA. Each year, every advisory teams up with another to take part in four community service sessions off-campus. Some of these efforts include visits to eldercare centers, student tutoring at elementary schools, and outdoor nature projects. This year, the Guffin and Meatto advisories combined and went to Sherwood Island, with the main task of removing invasive entities that could harm the well-being of the ecosystem. The group was supplied with many sets of pliers, loppers, and saws. With these tools, the students eliminated phragmites, vines, and branches from the area. After, they collected them into piles and discarded them from the land. This task was by no means a straightforward one, as it required muscle strength to pull large vines, precision to cut branches into small pieces, and teamwork to logically organize a phragmites removal. After each session, both advisory groups marked their achievements in a journal to understand the impact of every clean-up. By the end of the project, the state park was considerably cleaner, ridden of many invasive entities that would have hurt the health of the species on the island. Arguably the most humbling sight of the entire project, the impact on the community was as obvious as the effort concluded. The Sherwood Island State Park will undoubtedly see significant changes by the end of the year after 16 clean-up sessions and four different rotations, establishing GFA as a prominent factor in the community it serves.