On Saturday, November 17th, two CCA’s and a student from Sayre High School participated in a community service event at South Philadelphia High School with the Philadelphia Orchard Project. The event’s primary goal was to plant flowers and herbs in the community garden before the season was over, and before the snow, ice and cold would prevent any access to the ground.

Throughout the course of the school week leading up to the event, Sayre’s CCAs consistently alerted students that they would be doing community service at South Philadelphia High School, and attempted to get them to join. Some students were interested, and others were discouraged by the cold and outdoor elements. After a week of promoting, convincing and gentle nudging, the day of the event finally came. When the two CCA’s arrived at South Philadelphia High, one student was there to meet them, ready to work: My’Isah Savage.

My’Isah is a senior at William L. Sayre High School. This is her first year at Sayre, as she studied at Freire Charter High School for the last three years. At Freire, she started a poetry club for students to be able to express themselves, and she hopes to start one here at Sayre as well. After Sayre, she would like to go to CCP for the beginning of her career for Political Science and hopes to get her Master’s Degree at some point in the future.

When we arrived at South Philadelphia High, we immediately got to work and started picking up trash and placing rocks down around trees and big plants. Once we were done with that task, we moved on to planting. POP placed plants around in certain spots for us to begin. When it came down to it, we did not need any experience to plant the herbs and flowers. While the organizers originally anticipated all of the work taking 3 hours, with all the volunteers, everyone was able to get the job done in 2 hours!  My’ Isah and the CCAs said that it was an extremely fun experience, a great stress reliever, and they completed their goal of service for the day.