Day for Downtown, an annual volunteering event, brought a Downtown campus student organization to a Roosevelt Row community garden Saturday.
The Barrett Leadership and Service Team Downtown (BLAST’D) participated in the 12th Annual Day for Downtown, which focused on local parks and green spaces downtown. The Downtown Phoenix Partnership, HandsOn Greater Phoenix and the Phoenix Community Alliance presented the event.
“It is important to build networks of volunteers because we are a part of a community,” women and gender studies major Shannon Jenkins said.
BLAST’D is a community service club that is hosted through Barrett, the Honors College. BLAST’D is a sister club to BLAST, which is the main club based in Tempe, and works specifically with the downtown community in order to make an impact on the Downtown campus.
BLAST’D participated in A Day for Downtown by working with Roosevelt Growhouse, located on North Sixth and East Roosevelt streets.
“The Growhouse was a logical choice in terms of a project for us to do. It is close to the downtown ASU community and it is something that our volunteers would be able to see the growth and progress of this project,” said Kelsey Roderique, community service director for BLAST’D.
“I got involved with BLAST’D last year because I wanted to be a part of a service organization down here,” Roderique said. “To me volunteering is very important. It is not only beneficial to the community but to yourself personally and to see that your time and energy is beneficial to other people.”
The Growhouse was developed in 2008 and started out as a “community-based, public art experiment on a quarter-acre property in downtown Phoenix that is dedicated to the local food and handmade movement.” The Growhouse is now a sustainable community garden, residence and boutique maintained by the community and volunteers.
“It is basically an initiative on behalf of the community to promote sustainability and it focuses on gardening and how to turn a dirt lot space into something for the community and grow things there. Their mission is to create a beautiful sustainable community that can be enjoyed by different people,” Roderique said.
At the Growhouse BLAST’D and other volunteers helped dig out a final planter bed that the Growhouse will use for a vegetable garden. They also re-mulched the entire area to prepare for planting and painted the house and fencing material surrounding the house.
“Connecting people and bringing life to the concrete, that is what I feel this is doing for us,” sustainable ecosystems sophomore Molly Bajgot said.
Contact the reporter at lily.zimmel@asu.edu
