On Saturday October 25th, every healthy and able
AmeriCorps member in the country took part in a required day of service called
Make a Difference Day. This is a day when AmeriCorps volunteers, regardless of
their volunteer site, join a team of fellow AmeriCorps members in “getting
things done” within the community. That could mean painting over graffiti,
framing a house after a fire, or in our case rebuilding deer fences on orchards
that were destroyed in the massive Carlton Complex Fire in Pateros.
Many of us will remember the 2014 fires. It affected all of
us in one way or another. We heard story after heart-wrenching story about families
who lost everything, who should get the blame for such a catastrophe and the sheer
economic cost of such a disaster. But now, in late October, how many of us are
still thinking about these issues? How many of us can honestly say that we
think of the fires daily, much less deal with their consequences every day? The
fires are out. The media has long since shifted their focus. Air quality is
back to normal. For most, it’s back to life as usual. Not for those who live in
Pateros and areas affected by the fires. I will not make any futile attempt at describing their current
situation; suffice it to say, deer fences are but a fingernail scratch on the
tip of the iceberg.
Deer fences are as important to an orchardist as a sharp saw
to a lumberjack. Without them deer
would greatly reduce yields every year, making a deer fence an excellent one
time investment of time and money. The orchards we were helping out on Saturday
lost significant portions of their fences, yet luckily their trees were still
standing. With frozen ground and snow just around the corner, the time for
repairing and in some places replacing fencing is dwindling. That’s where 34
AmeriCorps volunteers come in. By splitting our group in two we were able to
help two orchards pull down damaged fencing, remove debris, trim obstructing
brush, dig fence post holes and set fence posts.
At the end of the day every member of our group was dirty
and tired. We left the orchards with blistered hands, tired backs and humbled
egos. There were 34 of us, mostly young and able volunteers who spent a day
helping out two orchards repair several hundred yards of fencing. In an area 4
times the size of Seattle. Whose primary industry is agriculture. The amount of
physical and emotional repair needed in this area is ineffable. That said, and
at the risk of sounding tacky, I feel comfortable speaking for the group when I
say we made a difference on Make a Difference Day.