An ivy pull in tiny Gideon Park is making ripples halfway around the globe. 

Students from the Odyssey Multiage Program are raising funds to help young women in the island nations of Melanesia, through the Parks Foundation’s new ParksCorps program – doing well for their overseas peers, by doing good for Bainbridge Island parks.  

The students’ volunteer work is benefiting Melanesian Women Today, providing scholarships for girls who would otherwise be denied the educational opportunities kids here take for granted. 

“Everyone should be able to learn and have an education,” says Abby Myrick, an Odyssey seventh grader. “I feel like those girls who don’t get to learn there, I just want to help them so they can learn and do stuff with their lives that they want to do. I think that’s important.” 

Odyssey seventh and eighth graders are working at Gideon Park every Friday afternoon through March and April, pulling ivy and other invasives from the woodland behind the playground. 

The pocket park on Grow Avenue in Winslow is within walking distance of the school campus, and the ivy pull is a comparatively low lift with quick, clear results for the kids and park users alike.  

“Neighbors had been asking that we focus some love towards those woods,” says Morgan Houk, volunteer coordinator for Bainbridge Metro Parks, who’s shepherded the students through each event. 

ParksCorps grants for nonprofits

ParksCorps formally launched last fall as a stewardship program of the Bainbridge Island Parks Foundation. The goal: to put more volunteers to work in parks and trails, by rewarding nonprofits and clubs for turning out their members for special stewardship events. 

ParksCorps work parties run two hours on afternoons or on weekends. For every person-hour spent pulling ivy, planting trees or building trails in a park, a club earns $10. Multiply a whole club by a two-hour work session by 10 bucks, and the reward adds up fast. 

Bainbridge Island Rowing turned out 60 volunteers in December to plant trees for two hours at Blakely Harbor Park, and went home with a $1,200 grant to support club activities. 

Participating groups so far include Bainbridge Island cross country, water polo and swim clubs. ParksCorps events have been held at Blakely Harbor and Pritchard parks and Moritani Preserve. 

ParksCorps grants are funded by general donations to the Bainbridge Island Parks Foundation. 

“We like to think volunteering in parks is its own reward,” says Barb Trafton, Parks Foundation projects director, “which is true. But if we can sweeten the pot and give grants to nonprofits and clubs, especially those serving kids, so much the better. It’s a real benefit for our parks and trails, with so many new young people putting in their time and engaging with parks through stewardship.”  

For their ParksCorps service, Odyssey students chose to dedicate the grant money not to their own program, but to their favored cause. 

Students from Odyssey – a multiage program of the Bainbridge Island School District, based in Commodore Center –  have over the past few years raised thousands of dollars for Melanesian Women Today. 

The Bainbridge-based nonprofit promotes education and literacy, entrepreneurship and health for girls in the South Pacific nations of Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia and Fiji. 

Funds from Bainbridge Island have supported scholarships for dozens of Melanesian girls, construction of a small building for young women to bring goods to market, and rebuilt a library destroyed by king tides as an effect of climate change. An April book drive will collect texts to ship to the South Pacific. 

When COVID kept students out of the classroom in 2020-21, four Odyssey girls kept the fundraising going by selling cookies. 

Colleen Huck, Odyssey paraeducator and service learning coordinator, says the Melanesian Women Today’s mission resonates with Bainbridge students.  

“The (Melanesian) girls are their age, 13 or 14, and if they don’t go school, they get married. Which to our kids is mind blowing. It’s such a different life than what they experience here, with free public education. 

“It helps them appreciate being in school here, and helping others the same age stay in school far away.” 

Islander Mere Sovick, Melanesian Women Today founder and a native of Vanuatu, says the students come up with their own fundraising plans.  ParksCorps completes their service learning while also raising money for their cause. 

“They’re really good champions,” she says. “You just sit back and watch them learning new things. I love that, seeing the cross-cultural learning and solving world problems.” 

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ParksCorps seeks more clubs and nonprofit organizations that want to earn funding through volunteer stewardship work in Bainbridge Island parks. Email barb@biparksfoundation.org, or see www.biparksfoundation.org/parkscorps. Apply for the program here.  

Support the ParksCorps grants program with a gift at www.biparksfoundation.org/give. 

Melanesian Women Today founder Mere Sovick

Bainbridge-based Melanesian Women Today supports young women and girls in the South Pacific islands, from education and literacy to entrepreneurship and health.