College of Charleston Grad Students Lend Helping Hands in Cannon Park

The College of Charleston Graduate Student Association selected the Charleston Parks Conservancy as their philanthropy project of choice for the academic year in fall 2010 and wasted no time getting down to business to help out in multiple facets of Cannon Park. The students held an oyster roast fundraiser to help raise money for the large new planting that would take place in Cannon Park at the end of April. Along the way, these grad students, while juggling full-time academic schedules, also helped with the large winter prune of roses in the existing Cannon Park flower beds, notifying the Harleston Village neighborhood of the ongoing project, and amending the soil in the new flower bed in preparation for planting.

Finally, on Saturday, April 30, many members of the Graduate Student Association came out to donate their time and muscles to help plant over 350 plants in the large bed by the columns of the old Charleston Museum. The turnout by the association was fantastic. Even during the stressful time of the end of the semester with papers to write and finals to study for, students came out and donated a large portion of their Saturday to help with this large planting. The planting took from 9:30 a.m. until almost 3 in the afternoon, with students coming and going for hours at a time helping to dig the holes, place the plants in them, water, and clean up. One of the students in particular, Allison Cappel, a grad student studying Early Childhood Education was even there helping for the entire five and a half hour duration of the planting.

It's contributions like this one from the College of Charleston Graduate Student Association that allow us to make such a huge impact in our neighborhood parks and greenspaces in such a short amount of time. The Charleston Parks Conservancy owes many thanks to Maggie Travis and the entire group of volunteers from the Graduate Student Association for choosing to work with us and doing such a tremendous job in Cannon Park this spring. If you haven't been by the new planting in Cannon Park yet, do yourself a favor and go check out the A+ work that these graduate students put in this semester.