My name is Caleb and I’m a proud member of City College of Technology at CUNY, majoring in mechanical engineering. As someone who has lived in New York all their life and always wanted to focus on environmental design in technology, I was eager to help contribute to Big Reuse’s focus on cleaning up and preserving the natural aspect of my city through tree care. Being able to make an impact in the community, personally saving and helping trees in areas I’ve been to was such a unique and rewarding experience. I enjoyed learning the techniques to help cleanup trees and working with the community to also help them learn and work as a team, which is vital for the people of New York who want to see a cleaner, healthier city.
The main focus for my internship was street tree care, where I learned how to clean up, plant mulch and help conserve trees in different New York neighborhoods, which was really interesting because I got to experience firsthand how the trees in my old neighborhood were taken care of. In addition to helping with the signup listings and pages for these events, I got to participate with members of these communities, and see them work as a team and come together for a passionate project. It not only helped me learn to care for trees and the process of environmental conservation, but also to work as a team with anyone as long as they have the same passion for our work.
Even though my time at Big Reuse is ending soon, I hope to be able to care for more trees on my own and have that same passion for nature preservation for my future projects.