By Kiana Aryan, 5th grader at Sage Canyon Elementary
On Sunday, April 26th, Sage Canyon Kids Korps visited San Dieguito River Valley to help clear the lagoon of non-native plants. Guess who helped with this eco-beneficial project? Yup, that’s it! You recall that the last Kids Korps project was to visit the students at the Braille Institute. Now the students were helping out to clean the lagoon! Each student partnered up with a Kids Korps member, grabbed some gloves, and started pulling! The students and Kids Korps members were to get rid of non-native plants, such as ice plant and various weeds. Ice plant is a plant that sucks up all the water, so native plants can’t get any. When pulled, ice plants are heavy; you can feel all the weight of the water that is stored up in the leaves. There is another ice plant that looks as if there are beads of water on it. When you pull it, those water drops burst and your hands (hopefully gloved) get wet. Because the ice plants suck up all the water, it causes the native plants to die out and the ice plant takes over. That is not good because some animals that live in the lagoon will only nest in the native plants, and ice plants are preventing that from happening! This project was fun and eco-friendly. It was also people-friendly –putting the Kids Korps members with the Braille Institute students to get pulling and get friendly!
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On Tues. February 24th, Sage Canyon Kids Korps visited the Braille Institute to deliver special hand-made textured cards. The cards had been made on February 4th as a fun Kids Korps project at Sage Canyon Elementary. When the Kids Korps group arrived at the Braille Institute, the first thing they did was go on a tour. The tour was led by Miss Amy, the youth coordinator, and Jose, a student at the Braille Institute. They showed the Kids Korps members around and explained how blind people read, write, use computers, and go about their daily lives with a visual impairment. Then, the Kids Korps volunteers went to a classroom to make blankets with students, Sydney, Austin, Wesley, Jose, and Alexis. The blankets were being made for children going into foster homes. The Kids Korps group helped the students to feel, cut, and knot the blankets. All in all, the Braille Institute Project was a great success, and a fun one, too!