By On The HIll Staff Writers Val Edelson and Mieke Wells
For Ojai Valley School students, there’s work before play.
Before throwing themselves into the annual end-of-quarter celebration known as Spudfest, more than 100 middle school and high school students on Wednesday joined in a partnership with the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy to restore an old kiwi orchard at the Ventura River Preserve.
OVLC’s field studies director Brendan Taylor was excited to see so many volunteers at the river bottom event. He has been working for the nonprofit conservancy for six years on its mission to protect the views, habitat, and water of the Ojai Valley.
“To restore the land to its natural state, we first have to get rid of all man made stuff and all the old junk, that is step one in restoring land to its natural condition,” Mr. Taylor said. “We’ve always had volunteers but this is the first time we’ve ever had so many volunteers. This is the single largest volunteer event we’ve had.”
Many were involved in making Wednesday’s project come to fruition.
While OVS has long partnered with different organizations to do community service projects, this year heads of Outdoor Education at Lower Campus Matt Inman and Duncan Wallace decided they wanted to focus more on local organizations.
“We’re focusing now on two organizations that we feel are working in our community and helping people we know directly,” Mr. Inman said. “We can help not just financially but with physical work like we are today.”
Upper Campus AP Environmental Science teacher Miles Munding-Becker, who also teaches Marine Science and runs the school’s Field Studies program, said he was surprised and pleased to see how well this event worked out.
He believed that OVS was able to make a big difference and was proud of the students’ hard work.
“It’s cool to see the old saying of ‘Many hands make light work,’ ” he said. “Some kids at the Upper and Lower campuses are working really hard on removing the wood from the Kiwi orchard and getting a lot of material out.”
At 9 a.m. all OVS volunteers and faculty were greeted by OVLC officials and divided into groups to begin restoration work. While one group targeted removing wires another picked up wood and removed irrigation lines.
Sophomore Jessi Ponce Sanchez said she had a fun time volunteering, picking up wires, logs, and old kiwi vines to restore the land.
“My favorite part is knowing that I’m helping the environment,” she said gladly while working on the field, carrying wires.
At the end of the event, both students and faculty thanked OVLC for the opportunity to restore an area that OVS often uses for outdoor education adventures.
Not only did students help, but teachers were actively helping to restore the land as well. This work wouldn’t have been possible without the combined efforts of high schoolers, middle schoolers, and faculty members.
“I’ve got ninth graders helping seventh graders and it’s just a great experience for them all to be together,” said OVS Head of School Lars Kuelling
Freshman Enzo De Martini felt grateful for the experience and the opportunity to work with his classmates to make a positive change in the environment.
“The earth needs help and this is the time to help it,” Enzo said.
