Last Thursday was CLIF Bar Community Service Day—a day where everyone sets down their pens (those are what we used to use before computers), grabs a pair of work gloves and heads out the door to earn some blisters. Incredible, the impact that can be made when that many people descend on a single locale.

This year's project took place at the Double Rock Community Garden in San Francisco. We partnered with the Brower Youth Awards, Friends of the Urban Forest and Plants Gone Wild Native Plant Nursery and showed up with 100 people ready to dig, grade, hammer, till, weed, spread woodchips, install irrigation systems, build fountains, construct a greenhouse, remove dead trees, relocate granite slabs—there was no lack of things to do. The work, the sweat and the reward was great.

It was an incredible day—warm sun, dirty bodies, working and sweating shoulder to shoulder. We worked on both the Double Rock community garden and a project for the CA State Park, reintroducing native plant species and salt marsh along the western bay coast, which was filled in and dumped on for so many years. There's actually going to be a bike path that goes all the way from the Golden Gate Bridge to Candlestick Park (that's right, 'Candlestick') sometime in the next four years or so and the area we worked on will be part of that. Talk about a beautiful ride!

Whether changing the landscape of a public garden, framing homes for Habitat for Humanity, or replanting native species in an estuary, it always brings an amazing feeling to be able to look back at a single day's work and see such progress, simply because people came together. The garden is by no means done, but it will be some day soon. Some from here might even head back over to help that happen. Gardening's addicting!!! 

Huge thanks to Clifsters Grady and Caron for making the day happen. And to Ms. Jackie for sharing her garden-to-be with us.

For more photos from our day, check out flickr.com!

More on the garden:

The Double Rock Community Garden, located in Bayview Hunter's Point, is the largest of its kind in San Francisco, and is undergoing extensive renovations and expansion including the establishment of a greenhouse and tree nursery that will ultimately work with Friends of the Urban Forest to meet the city's needs for trees. Already, the Double Rock Garden gives local residents access to healthy foods, employs local youth and serves as a place of beauty, inspiration and hope for the community. Additionally, produce from Double Rock is delivered to elderly and disabled persons in the area on a biodiesel truck. The establishment of a greenhouse and tree nursery will serve as a source of income-generation for the garden and job training for local youth.