Camp Arroyo

On the 28th and the 29th I went to a camp in Livermore called camp Arroyo. Being in the group FIERCE which is a subgroup of the non-profit organization called LEAF, I was invited to attend this camp for free!! The camp was paid for by EathTeam and stopwaste.org. This camp was a big eye-opener for me, and I feel that it is my duty now to repay them by doing whatever I can to help save the earth around me. The people who I met there were much more than environmentalists, they instantly became my family.
When I arrived I was kind of nervous. I was directed to my cabin and unpacked. I hanged out there until the rest of my cabin arrived. Thankfully I knew most of them already, and those who I didn’t know I became fast friends with. We went down into the dinning hall to check in. On the wall were some lists of environmental workshops that we could sign up for. We filled out a name tag and then sat down at a table that matched our randomly assigned number that was given to us. We played an ice breaker game and introduced ourselves to the others at the table. Everyone from my table came from Fremont, and we all just happened to like Disney, Harry Potter, and Pirates on the Caribbean. Then we went on a small hike around the camp while being flooded with interesting facts. They did not have to cut down many trees to build the camp because a long time ago there was already an existing place there. The camp used to be an isolated facility for people with tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection that involves the lungs and is highly infectious, but when a cure was created for it there was no longer a need for the camp and it was torn down. When camp Arroyo located that area to build the camp on they went through a careful and detailed process to make the camp environmentally friendly. All of the buildings there were made from recycled material. The walls were insulated with hay and the windows and vents were carefully designed so that there is no need for a heater or air-conditioning. The water in the pipes are heated by the sun and the pipes run underneath the cabin so that the floors get heated. The floors of the cabin are made from left over ash that got mixed with cement to create concrete. Next we had lunch; every table sent two people to get the food. The food there was created for vegetarians so every meal was mainly created from carbohydrates and cheese. Some of the food came directly from the garden, and everything that could be, was organic. For lunch we got the best tasting pizza I have ever had! There were some vegetables on top of the pizza like artichoke, and every meal came with a new type of salad which I also really enjoyed. After lunch we attended our fist workshop from 1:30-2:30. The choices basically came down to two options, either working with fungi or with worms. I chose the vermicomposting class which basically taught us how to use worms to decompose left over food. Once the food was then decomposed we could use the leftover material or “worm tea” to help our gardens grow. We learned how to create homes for them and how to prevent something bad from happening. The temperature they like the best is between 60-70 degrees, if it gets to hot they will try to leave. When giving them food to eat we have to remember that worms breath trough their skin so we cant give then anything to acidic. We also have to pretend to be vegan when giving them food because any product like meat or cheeses can attract rodents. After creating the homes and learning how to take car of them, we got to take some home to start one of our own. The next workshop I chose was a two hour class on urban farming. A really awesome dude from UC Berkley named Gary Rosenberg taught the class. All of the material he provided didn’t coast him a penny! He went around town and collected all of the materials that was junk to others but was our “gold.” In the class we learned how to make the best kind of soil. We put all kinds of things in it like horse manure, egg shells, rotten avocadoes, weeds, dog hair, and dead bees. He explained the cycle and said that even weeds are good because they soak up the sun, when they die they give those nutrients to the other plants. His saying is that nature grows in abundance. He said a lot of complicated words here and there so we could all tell he knew what he was saying. We transferred plants into our gardens and afterwards we had sun tea that came straight from a tree he had planted. If you want to learn more about what I learned you can check him out on you-tube it’s really awesome! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMStyXKgsWs
I walked over to the other workshop which taught kids how to cook food using their garden. They had leftovers so we got to eat their vegetable stew as well. Afterwards we walked back up the hill and did some crafts and games. I learned how to croshay plastic bags into even cooler bags! We then had dinner of cheese enchiladas; we had an option to go on a night hike which I decided to go on. No flashlights were used and the stars looked amazing, plus you could hear those down at the campfire singing. We went down and joined the campfire and had smore’s. The next day we had freshly baked blue berry muffins and fruit. We listened to student presentations, wich talked about the projects that they were working on. 3 grouping including FIERCE got a 500$ state farm grant to reduce plastic usage. All of the students apply for grants themselves, if you write 50 grants you will probably win two of them. This shows how dedicated everyone is. Being in Fierce has shown me that anything is possible. (all of my pictures are on a disposable camera so I couldnt post them online)