Let’s Celebrate!
This year the Community College Initiative (CCI) Program is celebrating its 10th year of international exchanges at community colleges across the United States! To celebrate our alumni and commemorate this milestone, during the CCI Pathways to Success Midyear Program in January 2017, this year’s 211 CCI participants and 22 CCI and State Department staff will work together to revive a historic orchard as a service learning event. At Lonely Dell Ranch in Lees Ferry Historic District, the CCI class of 2016-17 will celebrate 10 Years of the CCI Program and 100 Years of the U.S. National Park Service by revitalizing this orchard with seeds of good intentions for the future.
To help celebrate this event, we’re asking CCI alumni from all 10 years of the program to plant a seed in their community. You can plant anything, big or small! Just tell us what you’re planting—seedlings at home for a summer vegetable garden, a cashew tree in a community garden, an herb garden in your local community center—and tell us how the CCI Program helped you grow. Please send us your photos, videos, or essays about your planting experience to cccip@nvcc.edu by January 7, 2017. If you’re on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, tag your posts #CCISeeds!
Photo, Video, or Essay Submissions
Explain how the CCI Program helped you grow. What “seeds” did the CCI Program plant within you that enhanced your personal and professional development?
In your submission, please include your name, country, the program years you attended the CCI Program, and the name of the U.S. community college you attended (Example: Name, Country, 2012-2013, Scottsdale Community College). Take a photo of yourself with your planted seed, sapling, or tree, and email it to cccip@nvcc.edu by January 7, 2017.
If you’re posting to social media before or during the orchard event, please include all the above and be sure to include the hashtag #CCISeeds!
The CCI Pathways to Success Midyear Program Service Impact
The U.S. National Park Service maintains Lonely Dell Ranch, with the help of volunteers, as part of the Lees Ferry Historic District in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. It is visited by roughly 30,000 people annually including locals who still trace their family history there. Since 2013, budget cuts, water troubles, and a lack of volunteers have caused Lonely Dell to be neglected. The orchards and irrigation systems have been hit hardest by the neglect, but with the help of the Community College Initiative Program, Lonely Dell can be restored to its former glory. Students will plant new trees and prune and treat still living trees for disease and overgrowth. They will remove invasive plant species and weeds to help other plants grow. They will help restore the historic ditches and stone-lined aqueducts that carry water to the orchards and garden, and they will install modern sprinkler systems, paint picnic tables, and re-fence the vegetable garden. Together, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and the Community College Initiative Program will preserve an important piece of Southwest history.