California State University, Fresno students, faculty, staff and alumni are taking up the call to service this weekend and next as part the university’s year-long 100th birthday celebration.

Four community nonprofit agencies will benefit: the Woodward Park Native American Meditation Garden and Rotary Storyland in Fresno, the San Joaquin Hatchery in Friant and the McKenzie Table Mountain Preserve on Auberry Road.

From 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Oct. 23, 100 volunteers – Fresno State students, faculty, staff and alumni – will volunteer through the university’s Jan and Bud Richter Center for Community Engagement and Service-Learning. They will be clearing hiking trails with Sierra Foothill Conservancy at the McKenzie Table Mountain Preserve and helping with a massive painting project at Rotary Storyland.

To date, Fresno State volunteers have cleared approximately three miles of hiking trail through inaccessible terrain on the preserve. Additionally, Fresno State volunteers are responsible for assisting Rotary Storyland demolish and rebuild the new Mother Goose in California display.

Also, students in the Environmental Service Learning Program of the Political Science Department will volunteer in two plantings in gardens they helped establish a year ago, the Woodward Park Native American Meditation Garden the San Joaquin Hatchery in Friant.

At 9 a.m. this Saturday, about 50 students in Dr. Mark Somma’s program will help Many Lightenings, a Native American organization, and San Joaquin River Parkway Trust plant native trees as well as weed vegetation and water at the Woodward garden.

The Environmental Service Learning program began the Native American Garden at the Jensen River Ranch last fall using plants that are native to the region.

The garden showcases local Indigenous culture as well as the interaction between the elders and younger generations. All of the plants in the garden have a medicinal, food, or ceremonial purpose including oak trees, elderberry, deer grass, native grapes and sage.

For the second planting on Oct. 30 at the hatchery (9 a.m.), the program’s students will be joined by Smittcamp Family Honors College students volunteering to assist the California Fish and Game Department with planting small California native trees and shrubs in a native vegetation garden. Somma’s students began the hatchery garden last fall also to welcome visitors.

For more information about the Environmental Service Learning Program projects, contact Somma atmarkso@csufresno.edu or 559.278.8408, or Cheryl Moxley at cmoxley@dfg.ca.gov or 243.4014.

For the McKenzie and Rotary projects, contact Renee Delport at 559. 278.7063 or 250.7724.

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