{{{If you are in these photos, I will send you a copy of them, but probably not til this coming weekend. Feel free to copy/paste/keep if you like.}}}
I think I first heard of the Valley of the Sunflowers on Downtown Phoenix Journal and then tried to find VOS on facebook because I was absolutely going to be a part of it, if I could. The night before the first volunteer day, I was in my mom's hospital room, sleeping on my narrow little couch bed, and I could barely fall asleep. I! was! so! excited! that I would be going to plant sunflowers. Except, of course, on the first day we didn't plant anything. We went around cleaning up the vacant lot, sweeping the sidewalks, and painting and moving signs. It was super-summer-hot and I remember after a while it felt absolutely surreal - moving around in this extreme heat, underneath the intense Arizona sun - for a few hours.
This image is of Kenny from the dedication of the Valley of the Sunflowers. It was windy that day and it even rained a very little bit about an hour later and then later got really dark and cloudy and rained a bunch later on that day. (Why do I remember this random stuff?)
So all September I helped on Saturdays and some Wednesday evenings at the VOS and then things got crazy in October with my mom's bone marrow transplant and I don't think I helped very much.
By November I was helping again and sometime in November I read Sean Sweat's twitter message that there was one sunflower blooming and so I went to see. And when I got there, there really was only one I could find blooming. But the others were getting ready to bloom. And there were bees and ladybugs all over the place.
In December, we had a sunflower picnic. Everyone brought the besssst food. I had asked people to bring yellow, red or green food. Yellow and green for the sunflowers. Red for the ladybugs. And that is what people did. Except Ivonne brought gingerbread. Brown food in honor of the dirt/brown lot that the sunflowers grew in. And oh it was such tasty gingerbread! Someone brought guacamole with red pomegranate seeds. So beyond good.
I suggested everyone wear yellow, green or red. And quite a few people did wear some of those colors! I don't know if you can tell from the photos, but they did. :)
Heather and Jennifer. We went to high school together.
Stacey.
Brendan.
Keith.
Kenny and Sean, two of the creators of the Valley of the Sunflowers.
Mario.
Mario and Keith.
A bee walked on Mario's hands and then he gently put the bee back on one of the sunflowers. It was so dark at this point, so the photos are really noisy/grainy.
Meghanne.
Me.
Peter taking the photo I use on my facebook timeline. Thanks Peter!
See the blue building to the south of everyone taking pictures? That's the Bioscience High School. The kids who go to that school helped with the Valley of the Sunflowers during the school week. And some of them came to the Wednesday evening and Saturday morning volunteer days. And I got to talk to some of them. I would have loved to have gone to a science-focused high school as a high schooler. Wait, no, I probably would have wanted to go to an Arts high school. All the kids seemed to be pretty glad they could go to that high school.
Suzie.
I still have more photos to post of the VOS. And will post eventually!
