Environmental, Events

Community Service Event: Vine St. Elementary Edible Garden

A group of USC ASCE members got up early on this Saturday morning to help completely rebuild an edible garden at Vine St. Elementary School. Tomás O’Grady of Enrich LA led a team of about 80 volunteers to clear out the old, unmaintained garden and build new raised beds, an irrigation system, a wooden fence, and picnic tables. After six hours in the sun, construction was complete and other groups began planting a variety of vegetables. We got valuable experience that will benefit our design teams’ work, including sanding (we’ll sand our concrete canoe), staining (also staining the canoe), and piping a irrigation system (our environmental design team’s system consists of pipes). Overall, it was a great experience, and we hope to be able to participate in another similar event soon!

  • We started by sanding wood for picnic tables.
  • Sanding wood
  • Water break
  • Sanding part of the fencing
  • Fence sanding
  • Carrying a section of fencing
  • Carrying a section of fencing
  • Sanding the fence
  • Break time
  • At least someone‘s working…
  • Stacking wood to be finished
  • Lunch break USC group shot
  • Staining/Finishing the wood for the picnic benches
  • Sealing wood
  • Brushing off a tabletop
  • Staining the benches
  • We also helped assemble the piping for the new irrigation system.
  • Members of last year’s environmental design team got lots of experience with piping, so they were perfect for this project!
  • Rosa glues piping together
  • Assembling the irrigation system in-place
  • Staining/sealing the fencing
  • The whole garden project. There were several other large groups in addition to our group from USC ASCE.
  • Installing the irrigation system.
  • Shoveling dirt
  • Shoveling dirt
  • A low angle across the new raised garden beds, while installing the irrigation system
  • Some creative pipework!
  • Assembling the last few pieces of the irrigation system.
  • Part of the nearly-complete irrigation system
  • Beginning to back-fill dirt over the irrigation system
  • The USC ASCE group, with project lead Thomàs O’Grady
  • The Garden’s progress right before our departure.
  • The USC group
  • USC group in front of the garden, as the raised beds are prepared for planting.