University of Illinois Extension; Summer Learn and Grow

Last week, I was tasked with getting nine cubic yards of path mulch delivered to one of our community gardens. The catch: get it for free. At the unit three Extension office, we’re working on a program that combines nutrition, gardening and media into a five-week long, three-hour-a-day program.  At our Round Lake site, we needed mulch on the ground to prevent the weeds from growing to ensure a safe and aesthetic environment for gardening. For those of you that don’t know me, I consider myself enterprising and can get most anything done, but I wouldn’t say that I excel at making cold calls. I began writing a script and calling some municipalities. After five or so calls with nothing but “We’ll call you back,” I took a break. The next few calls were in regards to tree services. First, I got a no but was directed towards another company that happily obliged. Clean Cut Tree Service of Grayslake offered to donate and deliver the mulch. I couldn’t have been happier because I didn’t need to make any more calls. We showed up and directed the truck to the back of the parking lot to dump the mulch. I never realized how much nine cubic yards are, but that’s 3,440 two-liter bottles of pop. With our newly donated five-foot-tall pile of mulch, we began fixing up our garden. If you want to learn more about what the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Educators (SNAP-Ed) do, check us out here: http://web.extension.illinois.edu/INEP/snap-ed.cfm.

I made sure to get the mulch to sign a photo release form