Both Co-VPs of Service were first contacted via-email by a woman named Keli Amann. She emailed Beta Zeta Nu asking if we could gather as many volunteers for an event her husband, David Amann, a financial advisor for Edward Jones had put together. Mr. Amann had just found sponsors that donated money to build Mezes Park in Redwood City. After a Co-VP of Service, Astrid, contacted her by phone she told her that they needed 200 volunteers to build a park in one day! Mrs. Amann was contacting every school and college to gather up as many volunteers as possible. The jobs were: laying down mulch, registering volunteers, painting bathrooms, putting together park equipment, cement mixing, laying cement, putting together benches, painting a mural that was designed by children of the community, and serving food. There was a job for anyone! The event was held on Saturday March 7th 2009 and both VPs of Service participated in the event along with, Edgar, Elmira, Arturo, Steve, Concepcion, Alfredo, Francisco, Jeremy, Aldo, Violeta and other students from MESA. Many of our group members were separated from each other, but still played a part in the event. Rene, one of our Co-VPs of Service, and a few others helped put together the equipment for the park and Astrid was also separated with others to lay down mulch in the park. First Rene and many other volunteers had to read instructions on the grass aside from the build site in order to put the equipment together such as the slide, swings, crossing bridge, ladder, rock climbing wall, etc. together. After the parts were put together they were carried individually from the grass to the build site. This project took a lot of man power. After the pieces were put together the playground structure was screwed together. In the meantime, there were piles of mulch on the sidewalk next to the build site. Many volunteers, including Astrid, were assigned to shovel up the mulch onto pieces of tarp. After a nice load of mulch was piled up on the tarp four volunteers had to carry it to the build site and lay it around the playground. Volunteers had to fill the entire playground with mulch! Although it was a back breaking job, all the volunteers were so determined to build the park on time that we finished building the park by 11, which was an hour before the deadline. Many volunteers from the Redwood City community turned out that day to make the build possible and it was by far a success.
