Work Day

There are certain things I didn’t expect to do at college. One thing that wasn’t necessarily at the top of the list, but definitely on it, was group mulching. And that happens to be something that Wilson has helped me cross off.

Work Day is an age-old tradition here at Wilson. It celebrates one prong of our Triad through a day dedicated to serving the college as a community. The day begins with reporting to your respective crew and partaking in whatever your crew supervisor has in store for you. Here in Admissions, that means we deep cleaned the office – windows, carpets, bathrooms. The entire office was buzzing with cheerful activity, and even our admissions counselors got down to the floor to help out.

At about 11:30 came what is arguably the best part of Work Day – the food. We had a real, honest-to-goodness picnic on the admissions patio, complete with eight pints of ice cream (please consider – eight pints). After eating a remarkable amount of food (we had to get our strength up for the day, you see) we set out to Gladfelter to get a group picture with all Work Day participants (including our two beautiful draft horses, all rigged up) and split into groups.
My group mostly consisted of my advanced Spanish class, which made for a bilingual mulching adventure. We had been given a huge pile of mulch, dozens of buckets, a few pitchforks, and nearly thirty people to repair the trail by the pond and meditation hut. Somehow I ended up with a pitchfork (which produced lots of jokes about religious studies majors and our trustworthiness) knee-deep in a pile of hot, damp mulch. As soon as a bucket was filled, it was thrown into an assembly line with shouts of "Cubo! Cubo!" Each bucket was tossed on the upswing, caught in the air, and effortless passed military-style until being dumped on the trail. Two layers of mulch and some invasive species removal* later, the trails were looking gorgeous.
After hours of hot, dirty work we celebrated our way to the pavilion, where we were greeted with food from our dining hall (our barbecue tofu is probably the top most reason I will never leave Wilson) and sweet bluegrass tunes, complete with dancing. Following work awards for our exceptional student workers, Work Day officially came to a close. But you can't end such a productive day with anything other than leaping off the rope swing into the pond with your friends as the sun sets over the farm. Oh, sweet work college. You give me so much.

Michelle

* A word on invasive species removal - against what I believed to be common sense, this is not, in fact, weeding. There were groups (not, mind you, effortlessly) yanking full-grown trees out of the ground to make way for native plants. Also on their list to remove were vines which I believed to be part of the actual tree before its removal. These plants are creepy.