Symposium SSP Session - Audobon Nature Institute

As part of the symposium, three SSP activities were available for all the participants to get a chance to reach out to the local community. One option was volunteering at the Audobon Nature Institute. The other options available were volunteering to build a home in hurricane affected areas - in combination with Habitat for Humanity. The third option was something called the Gentilly Community Outreach project. 

I just got back from volunteering at the Audobon Nature Institute (http://www.audoboninstitute.org). So let me tell you a little bit more about that. The Audobon Institute is a family comprising of a zoo, a park, an aquarium and even an insectarium in New Orleans. The forty odd members of the group that went to the Audobon Nature Institute were divided into sub groups each focusing on different volunteer activities for a couple of hours.

The activities included : cleaning up signs used by Migratory birds in New Orleans, cleaning up the trash in the surrounding park areas, landscaping bird cages and finally removing weeds. I signed up to clean up the trash. So equipped with brand new trash pickers, latex gloves and a big icebox with water we all set out to clean up ! Here you can see some of us at work:

Firstly, there wasnt too much noticeable trash to pickup at all. This is due to really efficient maintainance of the area. They really take care of the place :) But we did find lots of little odds n ends lying around which we managed to pick up. The walk was brilliant, it was a Saturday morning so there were lots of people working out, jogging and just enjoying the outdoors.  The area is beautiful with lots of greenery, lakes and bordered Loyola University as well. So it was really great fun. Here's a picture: