Key Club members, as well as Key Club sponsor Jennifer Hydes, volunteered to help the Urban Harvest Tree Sale on Jan. 18 at Rice University. The Urban Harvest Tree Sale is a vast event that aims to sell trees and similar plants to citizens of Houston and encourage interest in gardening. It routinely attracts many volunteers who help make Houston a better place for its citizens.

Urban Harvest sells a vast array of trees, including temperate, tropical and citrus fruiting trees. Temperate trees range from apple and mulberry to pomegranate, while tropical trees bear exotic produce like dragon fruit, passion fruit and lychee. Citrus trees produce citrus fruits, such as lemons and oranges.

Key Club members were assigned many different jobs as the hustle and bustle of the event made their assistance required. Some members assisted event-goers in putting trees in their cars, some helped people find their trees in the pre-sell area, some helped wrap bare-root trees, and others directed the sale participants to the check-out lines.

Zachary Friderich, a Key Club volunteer at the event, got a chance to interview Debbie Leflar, one of the board members for Urban Harvest and Student Volunteer Leader for the fruit tree sale.

Leflar says Urban Harvest has been around for 14 years, and she herself worked for 11 years at the festival. Urban Harvest had only 100 trees to sell their first year open, and their growing success is indicative of Houston’s growing love for gardening.

Leflar says that she hopes volunteering at the festival will inspire teenagers to share her love of gardening.

“Gardening is showed to be therapeutic and good exercise,” said Leflar. “Gardening is a good exercise in building delayed gratification. Growing your own food also helps people who do not like many fruits or vegetables, because it creates a curiosity to try the foods they grow.”

Along with inspiring a love of gardening in Houston’s youth, Urban Harvest’s mission is to help educate kids as to where their food comes from, and wishes to create community gardens for less economically privileged Houstonian neighborhoods.