A Saturday with Samaritan Scout: Stories of the Watchung Reservation Trails
by Oshmi Ghosh, marketing intern, novelist, NYU student
On July 12, three of Samaritan Scout’s interns took time out of their busy day to join a Trail Work volunteer session at Watchung Reservation. As central Jersey natives, they occupied their Saturday morning with the gratifying labor of nurturing their own land and investing in Watchung’s environmental future.
But that wasn’t all. At Watchung, they learned how this sort of volunteering in practice can not only tend to the earth but to our human bonds. As members of a team dedicated to promoting volunteering through our non-profit search engine, they were able to observe the lived experiences of regular and first-time volunteers.
From the 30 people raking, rooting, and cutting along the trails, Jack Greenwald, Akash Dubey, and Andrea Garcia heard the stories of the Watchung community and created memories to last.
Jack, a Springfield resident and Northeastern University student, is no stranger to service. He initially joined Samaritan Scout as a high-school volunteer, helping develop the front-end interface of the search engine to make local volunteering more accessible. At the same time, he developed an app for the Brain Injury Alliance of New Jersey, working directly with the organization’s leadership to design, refine, and launch a mobile tool that supports survivors and caregivers navigating traumatic brain injuries. He is also an avid hiker, having walked the trails of Watchung numerous times before, which made the experience of tending to the environment all the more special.
At Watchung, Jack met a Girl Scout named Emma. “She was telling me about her love for nature and how she comes here every month to help out,” he said. “She also does a lot of other volunteering in nature.” These routine, accessible volunteer retreats open up a world of community-building for younger people, setting great foundations for their values later in life. Emma and her friends inspired Jack, who hopes to return to the trails next month.
Akash Dubey, a Rutgers student from Berkeley Heights and full-stack engineering intern, had actually volunteered at Watchung previously in different events, though he’d never been to this one in particular. He was familiar with the reservation’s program that allows participants to “adopt a trail,” choosing one for the year to observe, report your findings on, and tend to.
“It was a great way to start the morning,” he said. “I shoveled, raked, and evened out the path to stop the flooding for when heavy rain comes through. Obviously, it felt great to do, but I learned about nature in a way I hadn’t before. When I told my friends about the experience, they also thought it would be a great activity to do together. They’ll be coming with us next month.”
Like Jack, Akash has always loved to volunteer. Before Scout, he taught English as a second language to residents of Summit, NJ, and he helped design AI-driven resources and other digital tools for educators and learners.
Both Jack and Akash are full-stack software developers for Scout, but they’ve always understood the importance of balance: after hours spent on the computer, it’s always nice to give back to the earth.
For Andrea Garcia, our marketing intern from Rutgers residing in Green Brook, the trail project connected back to everything she’s passionate about: community, representation, and giving back.
“I’ve always loved helping,” she said, citing her past work at Rocking Horse Rehab, an equine therapy center, and volunteering as a CCD teacher at her church. “It was so nice getting to hear the other volunteers’ stories on what led them to volunteer and be there shoveling with me.”
This included Boris from Garwood, a dad and high-school teacher of digital media who came to give back to his community; Imani, who came with her fiance to do something meaningful in the community together.
The conversation that inspired Andrea the most was with Tom, who works with the Boy Scouts. Tom taught Andrea about beech leaf disease and explained typical growth patterns of the surrounding trees. “We got into a conversation about birds where he introduced the World Series of Birding, an annual birding competition that welcomes students, book authors, and anyone with a passion for birds. He recommended different bird-identification apps (Merlin is his favorite!). I felt happy getting to know I was leaving volunteering with new knowledge and a connection.”
Coming back together, Jack, Akash, and Andrea shared the insights and stories of the teens, retirees, students, and young professionals they met at this event. Everyone was willing to put in the work, they noticed, and everyone knew the reward was something so much bigger than a line on a resume or something to pass the time.
Our interns returned to their daily roles with a reinvigorated passion for developing Scout’s technology and outreach campaigns, freshly aware of what Scout can do for its users. As volunteer rates across America decline, Samaritan Scout seeks to galvanize citizens nationwide to become active participants in their community — in a way that feels fulfilling to them and works according to their busy schedules. We make volunteering more readily accessible, so that programs like those of the Watchung Reservation persist with increasing passion.
To make this happen, Jack continues to work on our website’s frontend and backend to improve the user experience of locating volunteer opportunities. Akash is working on our information-extraction pipeline using AI embeddings that efficiently extract and deliver volunteer opportunities. Andrea is refining campaign messaging so more people can understand what makes Scout different and feel inspired to volunteer with our help. Last Saturday morning hasn’t changed our mission; it just reminded us of why we do what we do. If you’re interested in volunteering, visit samaritanscout.org and find an opportunity near you! You’ll never know what you’ll learn.
