UCF College Ambassadors with Florida Trail Association

On March 19th, we held our UCF stewardship outing on a local trail only ten minutes from campus. We partnered with the Florida Trail Association to perform the needed maintenance which was focused on both pruning vegetation that was growing onto the trail and removing the invasive caesar weed that grows in the area to protect our local ecosystem.

The event was a great time for everyone involved. Turnout was high and all the student participants got to learn more about how our local trails are maintained through the Flordia Trail Association Volunteer program. We both felt that we were able to more easily create meaningful connections with the students who attended the event and the volunteers from FTA thanks to the stewardship nature of the outing.

It was great to see students from very different backgrounds and a wide range of majors all come together to help clean up a local public trail. Despite the trail’s proximity and access to UCF, only one student who attended the event had been hiking there before, so it was great to see everyone enjoy a new natural space close to school. Afterward, many of our student volunteers chose to learn more about our local tail systems and the FTA volunteer program, and are excited to continue giving back to the trail systems around campus that they already enjoy!