Summit Park - October

As we said in the last post, our community partner is the Dickerson Park Zoo, and our main goal is to get more people from Drury University and the Community to volunteer at the zoo. One of the best ways to influence others in a good way to get them to want to help out is to be the example. So, on October 29th Lauren, Genevieve, and I (Slamb) went to the zoo and volunteered from 7:30am to 2:00pm. We were all sent to different areas of the zoo and got to work with some of the zoo keepers and really experience what it's like behind the scenes of the zoo. Getting a chance to help out not only strengthened our knowledge of what all the keepers get to do but we got a chance to see how much they truly love the animals that they work with. I (Slamb) got to work with the elephants and the apes during my hours. While I was there I learned that they keep the animals of the same species together so they never get lonely. Also, that they make sure to clean each of the animals areas at least once a day in order to keep them as healthy as possible. Having this experience just makes working with our community partners even more amazing and special.

In my (Genevieve) experience volunteering, I worked with the zookeepers that looked after the animals in the Africa area of the zoo, and a few others as well. The animals of the area that I saw were the birds, monkey’s, giraffes, lions, cheetahs, hippos, and a few more that I cannot remember the name of. In the morning we fed a few of the animals, which I thought was really cool to see the zookeepers do because you can see how much they love the animals. I asked them what the names of the animals were, and they were able to tell me all of them immediately from the top of their head. Later in the day, I helped them clean the hippo area, which I think shows the amount of work that they have to do for the animals behind the scenes, which is a lot! One of the interns I was working with said that you would either love or hate the job because of all the extra work like cleaning the animal areas, but it is easy to see that all the zookeepers love it.

Lauren Pyle: Earlier in the month, Slamb and I helped with the McDonald’s scavenger hunt at the zoo. As kids went through the zoo, there were different stations where animals on their list would be highlighted. If they found all the animals, they would get a free ice cream coupon. Then Slamb, Alyse, and I helped with member’s night. I gave free lettuce out to people to feed the giraffes in order to gain an interactive experience for the members. We are not only working with the animals but also helping with member satisfaction. Recently, Slamb, Genevieve, and I shadowed the zookeepers in different areas. I was assigned working with the reptiles (good thing I’m not afraid of snakes). I actually got to hold one which was terrifying and exciting at the same time. We moved around an exhibit of pancake tortoises and cleaned out some cages. I was immediately shown the procedure in case someone was bitten by a venomous snake (thankfully that has not happened since the 1970s). It was neat to learn about the different snakes and facts about their regions and how the zoo wants to represent what is in the world.

Alyse Phillips: Earlier this month Slamb, Lauren, and I went to the zoo to help with Member’s Day. Slamb and I worked in the petting zoo area, handing out free goat food to the members so they could feed the goats. This is one of the ways the Dickerson Park Zoo makes its members feel appreciated and valued. These kinds of experiences also keep the members involved with the zoo regularly, so they will hopefully return on days that aren’t special events. Soon, we hope to revamp a maze at the zoo so they will have another attraction to draw in visitors.

In the month of November, we plan on talking with both our Dickerson Park Zoo sponsor, Chelsea Hoover, and our Drury Sponsor, Charlyn Ingwerson. In our meetings, we will discuss our ideas on revamping the maze and seeing what the best way to go about it is. We all had a roommate meeting in our living room to sort out when would be the best time to meet up with our sponsors and what we wanted our community projects to be each semester. We came to the conclusion that it would be best for us to renovate the maze this semester and possibly get to talk to the keepers about bringing the animals to campus at the end of next semester since it will be warmer weather than the winter months. We also considered working an event out with the zoo to where we could possibly have a Drury students night that would offer discounted ticket prices if Drury students brought their IDs on a specific date.

Overall, we have made some good progress this month on our volunteer hours and planning our big project of this semester. We are excited to volunteer even more and get started on redoing the children’s maze next month!