Over the course of this summer, David Zhang, a sophomore Agricultural Business Management major at the Institute of Applied Agriculture, worked his summer internship at a place that is not only important to the agricultural community of the University of Maryland but to the entire College Park community as a whole. Imagine a place that is not only a provider but an opportunity for everyone around it. Zhang’s internship was exactly that.
The University of Maryland Community Learning Garden is a non-profit organization located between the School of Public Health and the Eppley Recreational Center on the north side of the University of Maryland campus. Zhang is an intern at the garden in the months the garden is active from March-November.
What the Community Learning Garden does is grow its own crops to donate to the campus pantry to anyone in need of food. Since the Community Learning Garden earns no revenue from the crops they grow, they do this to do their part in helping the community around them. In addition to this, their true main goal is to encourage people to see green spaces in new ways and use them to their fullest capacity. You may be asking; how do they do this? It is a joint venture between undergraduates, graduates, faculty, and staff; and they are able to bring in grant funding. With this, they can operate this amazing garden as a non-profit that does wonders in aiding the community built around them.
Zhang said in our interview, “Here at the Community Learning Garden, we had a team of leaders, and each had a role from the president, vice president, treasurer, etc. and we would have meetings to discuss such matters.” Zhang also got the chance to prepare for Maryland Day in which he packed seeds, made labels, transported goods, and even helped guide their Community Learning Garden table. Some of the specific duties that Zhang had at the garden were watering it every week and learning to use the irrigation system. He even also learned how to apply vegetable fertilizer and fish emulsion fertilizer. In addition, he also harvested crops during the summer.
Zhang chose this internship specifically because “of the learning experience of becoming more of a leader and learning more about gardening.” He also gave me an example, “Here at the Community Learning Garden we host work hours for University of Maryland students, staff, and faculty members every week on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday.” “At the beginning, I was by Meredith’s side and learned how she led and communicated with others, and then later on I got the opportunity to lead work hours all by myself. This was a huge step in becoming a better leader and I enjoyed every moment of it.” Zhang has always been interested in landscaping, so when you take into consideration how the garden was put together with the architectural scheme of things, he got to learn everything he wanted from landscaping. “I learned everything I signed up for, and it was a great experience.”
