Planting Day with VisionWest Horticulture Students—July 31, 2012

Today we had a team from VisionWest join us for a planting day.

The mission of the VisionWest Community Trust is “Building Hope Together.”  The trust provides a variety of social service programs for the west Auckland community.  Additionally, the Trust operates a training centre which provides a holistic approach to training by integrating class work, work experience and opportunities for students to discover individual talents.

The training centre includes a horticulture school where students learn valuable skills to prepare them for a career in a wide range of  horticultural fields and today we were very happy to have a group of students out to CUE Haven as part of their field work experience.  The VisionWest visit was co-ordinated and supported by Conservation Volunteers of New Zealand (CVNZ).

The group arrived shortly after ten and included teachers Joan, Kevin and Peter and students Damion, Greg, Juliet, Murray and Tai.

It was windy and overcast so we had morning tea and introductions in the garage.

Ashley Carden of CVNZ is currently leading a group of international volunteers at CUE Haven and the group teamed up with the VisionWest team for the day.

After morning tea, Ashley gave the VisionWest and the CVNZ volunteers a safety briefing before we went up to the planting site.

The task for today was to do infill planting in order to fill gaps in an area that had previously been planted.

Ashley and the CVNZ team had earlier laid out the plants on the site and soon the team got to work filling in the gaps.

The dedicated team even ate their lunch in the field.

Shortly after lunch, the rain that had been threatening all day finally arrived and we wrapped up for the day.  But not before the combined Vision West-CVNZ team had planted about 540 trees in just a few short hours.

It was a great effort and we want to thank the team for all their hard work. And many thanks to Ashley and CVNZ for their assistance with the VisionWest  planting day.

This is the second time we’ve had a team from VisionWest and once again we were very impressed by the group.  The students were all enthusiastic and hard working and we really enjoyed having them as our guests.  The teachers are dedicated and very knowledgeable.  They were happy to answer our questions and we learned a lot from them.

We wish the students the best of luck with their studies and future endeavours!  Thanks very much and we look forward to having you all back at CUE Haven.

Thanks again!!