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Greening Canoga Park the Kiwanis way

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Contributed by: Cheryl Kobashigawa on 4/12/2007

It was an overcast morning, but that didn't stop the community from showing up, as members of the Kiwanis Club of Canoga Park, along with students from two local high schools and members of the Canoga Park Business Improvement District set out to beautify the streets of Canoga Park - all in the name of "service."

Kiwanis One Day ("One Way, One Day, One K") was designated by Kiwanis International in order to unite all youth and adult members from different parts of the Kiwanis family together in service.

While some teenagers sleep in late during their last days of spring break, 13dedicated high school students from Reseda High School and SOCES got up before dawn to arrive at the meeting location at 7 a.m.

These high school students are members of the Kiwanis family organization known as the Key Club. They were joined by Division 25 West Key Club Lt. Gov.-Elect, Lily Sheshebor, from Agoura High School.

The project, replanting many of the planters located in downtown Canoga Park, was proposed by Mary Paterson, a member of the Kiwanis Club of Canoga Park and executive director of the Canoga Park Improvement Association.

"It was really great," Paterson remarked. "This was something needed in the community. The plants were funded by the Improvement Association, [but getting someone to do the planting was another thing]."

Seventeen planters on 12 different streets of Canoga Park were carefully replanted with new potting soil, a Wheeler's Dwarf Japanese Mock Orange (a small shrub) and then surrounded with rich, bluish-purple flowering lobelia. Each planter was then given a feeding with a handful of slow-release plant food.

The job took a little over two hours, so the remaining hour of the project was spent weeding and cleaning out the planted areas of several "Canoga Park-ing" public parking lots.

"The kids were great, and willing to do anything," Paterson noted after the event. "It was cute to hear some of the remarks and conversations [of the Key Club members]. Some have plans to go to Stanford [and other large colleges]. A lot of negative gets reported about our local communities and our youth, but there's a lot of positive happening, also, like this partnership between Reseda and Canoga Park."

For more information on the Kiwanis Club of Canoga Park's service activities, please e-mail cpkiwanis@earthlink.net .For more information about Kiwanis One Day, visit www.kiwanis.org/service/oneday.asp.

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