Nichele Washington

For this community service project, I developed an initiative called CARE (Collegiate Advocates for Reproductive Equity) and hosted two donation drives for the entire month of October in partnership with the YWCA, developed a game plan for CARE with the YWCA, hosted a letter writing campaign in partnership with the Spelman College Environmental Health Sciences Department, and organized a maternal health webinar in partnership with the YWCA for the Spring 2025 semester.

CARE's Impacts are as follows:
- 557 goods collected for expecting parents (donated to Our House)
- 274 goods collected for doulas (donated to Morehouse School of Medicine)
- ~30 letters written to local legislators
- 2 Meetings with major reproductive justice organizations (i.e., Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies)

NOTE: This system does not allow me to enter in individual dates and hours of community service performed on that date.
Please see the list below for the official record of the months and community service hours accumulated while working on CARE (a total of 51.5 hours):
August 8-31, 2024: 16 hours; September 1-30, 2024: 8 hours; October 1-31, 2024: 17 hours; November 1-30, 2024: 7 hours; December 1-12, 2024: 3.5 hours

I loved this event! For this community service activity, I was not only able to learn about art restoration, but I was able to help actively restore the crayon markers alongside the belt line. I also enjoyed the short tour we took of the belt line to learn about some of the artists and their artwork which was present along the walls, under the bridge, and on the sides of the bridge.

I thoroughly enjoyed this experience! I've volunteered with Trees Atlanta once before, however, this time, the weather seemed to be perfect. I really like that the Eastside trail is more of a forest because I felt like I was able to more easily interact with the plants growing alongside and in the trail. I learned a lot of valuable information about the native and foreign vegetation growing in georgia and was even able to see an owl up close for the first time in my life (I think)! It was interesting to learn that the United States and Asia are both considered subtropic regions and so, as a result, our similar climates causes Asian plants to grow in certain U.S. regions.