Stick Pick Up (Service Project)
A volunteer project the whole family (or youth group) can attend!
Dates and Speakers
Spring Stick Pick Up Day
A volunteer project the whole family (or youth group) can attend! Our Spring Stick Pick Up event is part of Hartland’s tidying up before summer and our fire preparedness efforts. Enjoy a day here at camp while serving alongside your family or youth group. Volunteer groups will start at 9am with a break for lunch, and conclude at 4pm. This is a great way to teach servant-leadership while spending time together. With 400 acres to responsibly manage, we can use all the help we can get!
This event has been designed to accommodate families, younger volunteers, youth groups, and those who may need more frequent breaks. The day is split into one hour service project blocks and 1 hour activity blocks. In all, there will be four hours of service, and 4 hours of activities to split the day (including lunch).
Schedule
8am-8:45am Cafe Open/Arrival
8:45-9am: Registration/Check-in/Get assignments
9am Disperse to Project Area
10am Enjoy a break for an activity (Volleyball/Hike/Gym)
11am Disperse to Project Area and continue
12pm Lunch and Devotion in Dining Hall
1pm Disperse to Project Area and continue
2pm Enjoy a break, Cafe open 2pm-2:59pm, activities (Ballfield/Hike/Gym/Playground)
3pm Return to Project area
4pm Conclude service and depart campus.
Projects
All guests are to wear gloves and safety glasses.
Hartland will assign projects within the Annual Working Zone, projects include:
1) Picking up Sticks
As the name implies, volunteers can pick up sticks in the assigned Zone we’re focusing on for the year. Any ground debris and sticks that can be easily lifted will be gathered and taken to a central location for removal. This is the primary goal of this activity. Each year, the forest canopy drops branches and sticks across the forest floor.
2) Raking – those who feel comfortable using rakes can assist by raking down to gather more debris from the forest floor while removing ladder fuels.
3) Lopping/Pruning (Limbing Up Trees) – a very limited number of volunteers (adults only) may be provided loppers to help trim small branches up to 6-8 feet up the trunk of trees to remove additional ladder fuel access.
Ladder fuels are those pieces of plants and debris that allow a fire to spread to taller vegetation, like trees. When forest fires enter an area, they can gain access to the trees and create a more intense fire situation by using these fuels as ladders to enter the canopy. If a passing fire can stay lower to the ground, it often causes less damage to an area and avoids a catastrophic fire event. This also leads to greater forest health.
Annual Zone: Starting in 2024 Hartland has been broken up into 8 primary zones, each zone representing around 50 acres on average. Additionally, each year we always work in the immediate areas surrounding our main campus and buildings. By working a new outlying zone each year, we are able to ensure each zone of our campus is worked on every eight years, significantly reducing the fire risk in our area. Each year you participate in a stick pick up event, you’ll experience a new area of our campus!
Should the weather be against us, we can pivot to other campus projects instead.
