Blog

Halifax County NWTF Jakes Event by Taylor Rather

It was of one of our monthly Halifax County NWTF meetings when our president David Vaughan mentioned a fundraiser for our chapter. It would be for our ‘Jakes.’ He said we would construct some wood letters that would spell ‘Jakes’, let the kids paint them, then stake them in a beautiful mulch bed, followed with planting a nice oak tree above the letters. I told him that sounded like a great plan and that the kids would have a great time painting the letters! Every committee member agreed to the idea and we set our date and time. We dismissed then left for dinner. While at dinner, David said he would call us the night before to tell us if he needed help. After a good meal, we left.

When the day finally comes, my brother and I waited for David to call and every time the phone would ring, we would race to pick it up. We waited, then finally the phone rang and mom was telling us where to go. We quickly got ready and left.

When we arrived we were expecting to be put to work real quick but come to find that the kids had painted the letters and themselves and that they were starting to put down the mulch. We walked over to the ‘work site’ to take a peek at the project and found that the kids did a great job! The letters were perfectly cut to make each letter and the painting was well done! The tree was much bigger than we thought but it was perfect and the mulch setting was beautiful.

We watched people spread mulch and we even helped a little. David ended up assigning me the job of re-painting the letters so they would be extra white. We laughed and took some pictures. We decided to wait for the letters to finish drying then we would come back to finish the mulch work. We walked down to the pond and watched the geese as they flocked around a lady with bread. While looking at the pond, I noticed that people had thrown some trash on the pond side, so I walked down and picked it up so other people could enjoy the beauty but don’t have to see trash blocking it. After doing my good deed for the day, we left

The project was fun and we taught a few kids about the beauty of nature and that it doesn’t hurt to help it sometimes! We strive to teach kids the importance in taking care of nature and the understandings of different wildlife habitats. We love teaching the ‘Next Generation’ about keeping the world a beautiful place!