Saturday was Make A Difference Day! We started off the day early because the kitchens were only open from 5:30-6:30. I seriously considered skipping breakfast until about 6 when it occurred to me that we’d be on a work site all day and I’d probably need to pack a lunch. There was a community meeting to remind us what Make A Difference Day is about and make sure we represent the A well, then off to the vans so we could go to our first min-SPIKE!
We started the day at Burbank High School helping to revamp their community garden. We were told the garden had been thriving about 10 years ago, but the lead teacher for the project retired and no one took over after she left. So this year a new teacher was hired on and eager to restart the program and that’s where we stepped in. Today was their big ground breaking. My team and Green 1 showed up to help. Green 1 worked side by side with the high schoolers to create garden plots where they once had been. My team got the power tools!
We were given a heap of wood, dimensions and a circular saw. My team divided into two groups to build two garden boxes. We trained for this!! It was so much fun. It felt so cool to walk up to the HS campus and the kids knew who we were and started cheering for AmeriCorps. I also discovered that I really need to work on my “30 second sell.” Someone asked my team who/what is AmeriCorps and everyone kind of avoided eye contact so I stepped up. I didn’t really know what to say and stumbled over my words but I feel I explained adequately. I just need to practice for next time. Apparently, the highlight of that part of the day was Dr. Oz showed up to talk to the students.
I had no idea who that is but throughout the day I learned he’s someway tied to Oprah…? Anyways, some of the girls on my team started freaking out and acting all fan-girlish trying to take pictures/video with their smart phones. We left before the mayor was supposed to show up and do a press conference. We had other things to get done.
We went to another end of town to a different community garden. This one was in worse shape than the last, way overgrown from years of being ignored, and it was starting to rain. A team had been there for about 30 minutes before we got there, raking grass, picking up trash, and digging drainage trenches.
TL Abby helping clear the garden bed
I think throughout the day a total of 7 teams showed up to get things done. It was a pretty good glimpse into what sort of projects we could expect and what kind of neighborhoods to expect it in. Because there were only so many shovels and rakes to go around, I spent most of the time picking up trash from the garden beds. I am now a professional at spotting glass mixed in with dirt and weeds. Who knew there could be so much glass in dirt! I just don’t understand it. When you drop a glass bottle on dirt does it really break into that many shards? I also discovered some other buried treasures. The garden fence’s integrity had been compromised by someone bending the bottom back to climb through. I found evidence that someone had been using the garden for purposes other than intended. Let’s just say I’ll think twice about unearthing a plastic bag that was obviously buried for a reason and thank God I was wearing my work gloves! After that fun little job was completed, I was asked to pick up brush. A few of the garden beds were already there before NCCC ever walked through the gates and the people using them would weed or scrap parts of their gardens and just toss it to the side of the walk way. Do you know how many spiders like to hide out in damp garden clippings?! I’m pretty sure some of them were black widows so every time I moved a clump of brush, I’d throw it down and quickly scan myself for little creepy crawlers. Not dead yet, so I must be ok.
Our team helped clean the majority of the garden and created one new plot and defined the lines of 3 others.
And that was it- our entire Make A Difference Day! We all piled back into the AmeriVan very wet, cold, tired and muddy with the promise of a delicious dinner out a Suzie Burger on the Govie Budget.
But a very suspicious thing happened on the way to the restaurant. We had a little team meeting to talk about things next week and who would get super-duper specialized trainings in HAZWOPER, chainsaws, Red Cross shelter simulation and Save the Children Safe Spaces. TL Abby was carrying a trash bag full of something and when we asked her about it she would smile and reply “oh, it’s just stuff for Murph” (another TL). We’d ask her about our project and she’d tell us she couldn’t say but she gave us a hint- we wouldn’t need our steel-toes or any other PPE (personal protective equipment).
So we had dinner (which was delicious) and she told us we had one more stop to make before we were done for the night. We ended up in the parking lot of the mall’s Barnes & Nobel where she told us we had 10 minutes to go to the Children’s book section and find our favorite book from when we were kids.
AmeriRumors were spreading that we’d be finding out our projects sometime this week and this made us even more excited! So we took off running, I’m sure 11 people charging through the front doors scared the B&N staff. At this point we could already guess we had an educational project. So we found our books and circled up and said why we picked what we did. There were so many good books but it also made me realize that so many kids aren’t growing up with the same books I did. So what book did I pick? There’s a Monster at the End of This Book! Starring Grover!! Apparently there’s a sequel called There’s Another Monster at the End of This Book with Grover and Elmo!
But I digress. When we finished talking about our books Abby announced to us that we had [drum roll please!]… an EDUCATIONAL PROJECT! We’re going to be teacher’s assistants in an elementary school about a mile away from Base! We will be there November 5- December 14! I couldn’t be more excited! I know it’s going to be challenging. Abby read off some statistics about the school to us- their dropout rate is about 43% and about 93% of the students live below the poverty line. Each of the people in my team will be assigned to a different classroom to work the normal school day and then we will help out with the after school tutoring program. A work day will start at 7 am and go until at least 6:30. AND Abby did the cutest thing for us- she bought us all lunchboxes for our first day of school!! We really are lucky. Our TL is so sweet and caring and our team is so awesome and cohesive!
Saturday was also my first night out on the town. The team and I went out for a celebration at grabbing a pretty sweet first project. We went to a hookah bar in downtown Sac on J and 21st. I had an amazing Turkish sweet mint tea and we ordered the Exotic Baklava and House Blend hookahs. It was so much fun to just hang out with everyone we had a good time just joking around and unwinding a little bit. We also got some belly dancing lessons.
We flagged down a cab. Well actually the 12 of us had to flag down two cabs and split into groups of 6… crammed in a regular sized cab. It was hilarious!
Baby Brett, Me, Will, Ton-o-Fun Taylor, Carly sprawled across us, and Mama Dom in front
Our cabbie claimed to be the cash cab and asked us trivia as we headed back to base but the night didn’t end there. Danny talked me into going to the local bar just across from Base, Harvey’s. So off to Harvey's we went... in the rain.
I really don’t know how to explain it other than a dive. Its max capacity is 49 people and $5 will get you this beer:
Back to the excitement about the project! My team is going to be one of seven teams out of all the Corps to stay in the Sacramento area for the first round. Which means at least 5 more weeks of living in the dorms. That means no steel-toed boots, no camping in the cold, and guaranteed cell and internet access! I’m super excited we got this project! I’ve always wondered if I could make it as a teacher. I know it’s not going to be a cakewalk but I know the work will be rewarding and those kids will teach me so much. I can’t wait to get started and know what I’ll be doing with them and what grade I’ll be working with!
Today (Sunday) was a lazy day. It was a day off and a rainy day. It started raining in the afternoon at our job site yesterday and didn’t stop until late this evening. I think I got so used to the sunny beautiful weather that when it was cloudy and gloomy it really threw off my mood. I felt in a funk most of the day and kind of grumpy. I hope sunny California returns to the status quo soon for the sake of those round me.
I finally got to rejoin with my pod people. We played a game of Clue and talked about our projects. Then I met up with my team and had dinner. Tomorrow is another day off as well as bed checks. Hopefully we pass this one. Did I mention we didn’t pass bed checks last week? Because these are government buildings and they’re basically being loaned to us, we have weekly bed checks on Mondays to make sure we're taking care of this privilege. Last week, our mirror was “goopy” (I still don’t know what that means), there was hair on the bathroom floor (if you looked hard enough there were 2 strands in the corner), and we had grass on the carpet (they do bed checks after we do PT in the field… of course we’re gonna have grass on us!!). So we knew they were grading pretty harshly so we super super-super cleaned! Then after we took all that time to make sure everything was nice and neat, we had a team game night in our room- 11 people in one dorm sized room! We played Life and Apples to Apples. My team laughs so much that most of the girls are starting to sound like we laugh the same.
For whatever reason Green Unit doesn’t have PT tomorrow morning—not that I’m complaining! I think my team was talking about going to the zoo if it’s not raining too much. And if it is raining we’re going Halloween costume shopping because we’re on duty Halloween night.
I’m still looking into flights home. I can’t decide if I want to fly home and spend 2 weeks in Texas or use that time to potentially complete 80-100 ISP (Independent Service Project) hours. I think it would be smarter/ cheaper to stay in California and get work done, but it might be boring too…
No comments:
Post a Comment