Seay leads
Brandon Seay, ’18, left, explains to a student volunteer what work needs to be done on the GGC microfarm during the 2017 Gwinnett Great Days of Service event.
GGC micro
community service efforts
Upper Left: Brandon Seay describes gardening tasks to a student volunteer during a Gwinnett Great Days of Service work day in the GGC microfarm. Above: A bumble bee moves on to its next flower in the research orchard. Upper right: GGC students, faculty and staff volunteers pause for a group photo on a microfarm work day. Lower right: Student volunteers work in the microfarm.
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Geo rgia Gwinne t t C ollege
For Brandon Seay, ’18, an extra credit assignment transformed his college experience. Exploring environmental and sustainability topics for an English class, he encountered GGC’s community garden, a project created to involve students in growing food for local food banks. After attending the garden’s 2013 groundbreaking ceremony, Seay signed up as a volunteer. In the years since, Seay has been a driving force in growing the 400-squarefoot garden into a multi-faceted microfarm program encompassing two sites totaling about 30,000 square feet. One site includes a research orchard. “In 2017, we donated more than 1,100 pounds of produce to help ease food insecurity in the local area,” Seay said. “The microfarm provides opportunities for a variety of service-learning and research projects for classes, groups and individual students.” The microfarm also enjoys community support. Campus dining vendors donate coffee grounds for soil enrichment, Home Depot donates a variety of supplies, Sosebee Auto Supply donated a garden tiller and the restaurant Local Republic donated a hoop greenhouse system. Today, the microfarm is so busy that its activities are coordinated by a team of student assistants employed by the Office of Student Involvement. Seay is the team coach and lead activity coordinator. On any given day, one might find Seay guiding student volunteers in the garden, giving members of a class or student organization a tour or working with students and faculty conducting pollination research. Seay also took a leadership role in the microfarm’s expansion and initial planning for future collaborations with local community organizations. The microfarm’s broad community engagement complements Seay’s big-picture perspectives. His personal interests, which include genealogy and local history, had already nurtured his appreciation for societal interconnections. His work with the microfarm helped reinforce it, as did other college experiences. In 2017, Seay was on a GGC team that conducted a survey of local resident and stakeholder thoughts about the City of Lawrenceville’s College Corridor project, which includes new parks as well as a more direct traffic
