OSU Organic Growers Club's Earth Day Hoo Haa

To celebrate Earth Day, April 22nd, the OSU Organic Growers Club hosted the annual Hoo Haa at the OSU Organic Growers Farm. The farm is located on OSU property off HWY 34 east of the Willamette River. 

The Hoo Haa is an event where people gather to celebrate agriculture, food, music, community and ecosystem services. The main purpose of the Hoo Haa is to provide an fun yet educational experience where people learn how to prepare soil, plant seeds, and learn about sustainable agriculture.

At the Hoo Haa they had a solar panel vehicle that provided all the electricity needed for the event. A big focus was to be sustainable, making sure that all the trash that was compostable was being used for that.

If it could be recycled it was. Very little was actually thrown in the trash at the event.

Baby chicks in a chicken "tractor"

There were baby chicks there to demonstrate how animals benefit the soil. The chickens kick up the soil, providing aeration, reduce the bug/weed population, and provide excellent fertilizer for the soil. They were kept in a "tractor" that allows the chickens to be in a safe secure environment while easily movable to make sure the chickens hard work wasn't being wasted on a small space.

The Ogranic Growers Club's Secretary Brooke Getty said, "We couldn't have done this without all the hard work from our volunteers."

Besides the volunteers, the OSU Human Services Resource Center set up a table highlighting services they provide. "It [Hoo Haa] was a success, we got four people to sign up to volunteer with us", said Shanti Kriens HSRC office associate.

Krien and her OSU HSRC info table

Other fun activities that could be indulged were disc golf, music, and face painting. They also had more informative tables that discussed how to improve agriculture such as building bee houses. The OSU Student Apiary club even had active beehives on site. Soil pits were dug to show people the different soil types and where they rest.

James Cassidy intoducing the live bands

The event is mostly financed through donations provided by local businesses and ran by volunteers. James Cassidy, OSU Professor and Organic Growers Club adviser, plans the event every year with the goal of getting people in the community thinking more about the earth.

 "It's all about the soil, man", said Cassidy. He explained that the atoms found in soil are recycled over and over again "Billions of times". He talked about how the soil's atoms are used by plants to produce food that we then eat, those atoms are used by us and then returned to the soil, in one form or the other. The cycle constantly repeats itself.

Volunteers helping prep and plant onion starts at the Farm

When Cassidy was asked how attitudes towards agriculture have changed compared to the past he said it is completely different than in his father's day. It used to be that people didn't really think about the soil besides dumping fertilizer on it. Run-off, soil derogation, and pesticides were widely used and no one really thought about making it sustainable. That's what the Hoo Haa aim's to change, people's view on soil and sustainability.

Composting soil at farm

Demonstration on building small bee-hives

Transportation to the event provided for free

Chicken Tractor

Volunteers help plant onions

Info board for OSU's HSRC

Bee-Hives

Info sign for on-site bee-hives

James Cassidy serving free organic food at the Hoo Haa

Chicken "Tractor"

At a glace-
Hoo Haa by OSU Organic Growers Club
OSU Organic Growers Farm
Earthday April 22
Learning about soil and sustainability or volunteer
http://oregonstate.edu/sustainability/organic-growers-club-hoo-haa-friday-april-22

LBCC Students do something extraordinary- Volunteering as mentors in Haiti

Have you ever wanted to travel abroad? Would you do it if it meant going as a volunteer mentor? 

Students in the diagnostic imaging program at LBCC are doing just that. Stacy Mallory, the  director for the diagnostic imaging program, has been sending students in her program to Haiti who are wanting to volunteer by being educational mentors. That's right, these dedicated students are travelling to a foreign country to help people who desperately need the aid. 

Mallory is involved with Project Medishare, an organization that is trying to improve health care in Haiti. She helped write a grant that was awarded to the diagnostic imaging program at LBCC in partnership with Project Medishare. The grant pays for the travel expenses of students who have completed all of their required program diagnostic imaging competencies and met a few other travel requirements. The volunteer students then travel to Haiti, staying a little over two weeks, teaching the Haitian students what they have learned in the diagnostic imaging program. Project Medishare's goal is to help "achieve quality healthcare" by having volunteer mentors teach the Haitian students how to be self-sufficient so they can run their hospitals themselves. 

According to the CIA World Factbook Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Haiti's low levels of education impede Haiti's economic growth. Project Medishare states that some areas of Haiti report children by the age of 5 have a mortality rate of 1 in 10. The aid LBCC students provide not only helps increase their education but it can also mean the difference between children's lives being saved or lost. 

Roxanne Goodwin

Roxanne Goodwin, the first LBCC student to go, described an example of how their volunteer work helped the Haitian people. She recounted how a gentleman she encountered while mentoring lost his job as a primary school teacher when his school was destroyed in the 2010 earthquake. He found work at an airport helping people carry their luggage. While doing this he began to teach himself how to speak English. He then was able to become a translator for the Bernard Mevs hospital in Port Au'Prince and found himself learning to operate an x-ray machine in surgery. Goodwin was able to help this man learn general radiography with the classes being taught through the volunteer program.

Mallory said, "They are the amazing students that had the courage to go outside their comfort zone and do something extraordinary".

"Ketchup sandwich"

Goodwin, who described eating a "ketchup sandwich" for breakfast while in Haiti, recalled the living conditions saying, "The supplies and resources are very limited". She gave an example of how she took for granted being able to drink and eat as she pleased. While in Haiti she "only had access to [limited] food and water...delivered twice a day".


Recognition is due to the LBCC students who left the comfort of their homes to help those less fortunate. There names are; Roxanne Goodwin, Breanna Hixson, Robbi Graham, Angie Opoien, Jill Brunelle, Lacey Schulte, and Katelyn Whitehead.

The students at LBCC who have participated in this opportunity say the work is very rewarding.

Angie Opoien

"I am so grateful to have had the chance to work with a different culture than mine and see the way of their day to day living. I would recommend that anyone interested in doing volunteer work, do it! It is an amazing opportunity and really can be humbling", Opoien said.

"My trip was a once in a lifetime experience and changed my life", stated Hixson.

Breanna Hixson

Angie Opoien

Goodwin said, "The whole time you are helping them they are actually thanking you". 

You too can do something extraordinary. Consider doing volunteer work locally or abroad. Follow the example of these incredible students and give back to society. The experience could be more rewarding then you might imagine.

(If you wish to volunteer or donate directly to Project Medishare, visit http://www.projectmedishare.org/contact-us/)

At a glance-
LBCC & Project Medishare send students to be volunteer mentors
Students sent to Haiti, Bernard Mevs hopital in Port Au'Prince
The program is ongoing for the diagnostic imaging department
Haiti is in desperate need for medical training and assistance
http://www.projectmedishare.org/