This Past Saturday, October 1St 2011, NJIT S Finest, Men and Women S Track Team Joined

This Past Saturday, October 1St 2011, NJIT S Finest, Men and Women S Track Team Joined

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This past Saturday, October 1st 2011, NJIT’s finest, Men and Women’s Track team joined hand in hand with Prudential Bank and other kind hearted locals to volunteer their time at Branch Brook park. At this local park in Newark, they helped restore the Cherry Blossom Trees to their true beauty. The Track team and many other teams and organizations were all at Branch Brook Park that sunny, yet chilly Saturday morning to participate in the Prudential Global Volunteer day. The Prudential Global Volunteer day is an event held in every state, in different cities, on the first Saturday of October every year.

The NJIT Track Team was especially eager to participate in the community service last Saturday because the team utilizes that park every morning at 6AM for practice. Alexandra Arnold, a freshman runner on the NJIT track team, commented on the experience, “I am really happy that we all got the opportunity to give back to the Park and clean it….I run in the park every morning with the team, and it’s just nice to know when I wake up in the morning that I did something to return its favor to me.” All the members of the NJIT Men and Women’s track team felt similarly as this community service really hit close to home.

The mission that Saturday morning was to remove unnecessary branches called “suckers” from the Cherry Blossom Trees. In order to do that, each volunteer was given gardening tools to help perform the task. Matt Brown, a freshman on the NJIT Men’s Track team commented on the experience, “It was just really cool to learn something new about Cherry Blossom Trees. I thought Cherry Blossom Trees were trees with Cherries on it, but now I know better. Also I loved learning about what suckers were, and how to maintain a pretty good looking Cherry Blossom Tree… I know every morning when I run through the park and see the Cherry Blossom Trees, I’ll really appreciate them for what they are, they are just amazing trees.” A lot of members of the NJIT track team enjoyed the experience of working with the cherry blossom trees.

At the end of the day, all the Cherry Blossom Trees in Branch Brook Park, were in tip top shape and fixed. As one of the organizers of the Prudential Global Volunteer day commented, “The Job couldn’t have been done without NJIT’s Men and Women Track team.”… And the NJIT track team was happy to help.

By Maryam Haque