The end of the Big Blue House



Day one.



Today marks the end of our time in Hattiesburg.  Our very last day in the Big Blue House. We successfully completed the entire hallway with drywall, 2 entire bathrooms, and one wall in each of the other rooms.  The staff and especially Miss Sheila are really impressed with our progress we made to the second floor! I decided for this blog I am going to share my thoughts on this part of spike instead of explaining in detail the work we did.  We had a large lunch today with the staff of R3SM, Miss Sheila, and Darryl.  When I say it was huge, it was enormous.  There was chicken wings, pulled pork, burgers, dogs, salad, salmon, and apple pie made by Sam.  Perfect feast for poor volunteers.

Last day, hall complete!



Once the meal was over, Miss Shelia had some closing remarks for us.  She has got to be the second best speaker I have ever heard, first being Dad-Z of course.  She has taught me so much in the last 4 weeks regarding leadership and just being a better person.  She told us how much our team contributed to the second floor and how we each brought something to the table on the team.  The words she has shared with me in the last 4 weeks will last with me for the rest of this program.  Miss Shelia is someone that everyone in their life needs to meet.  She is a real tough lady with a huge heart and passion for people.  She quickly became someone our team looked up to, and I will certainly miss her guidance on our remaining spikes.  Darryl added his sarcastic two sense and made us all laugh.  He is one of the best supervisors we have had.  He has taught us so much and we will certainly miss him, too.

Their organization recognizes each volunteer who comes to the house with a certificate of appreciation for helping out at the house.  This gesture was so unexpected and nice of the whole organization.  She presented us with those along with a sweet plaque.  The plaque was for the coke machine that I did the leg work on to get donated to the house!  It is awesome.  They named the back room the "AmeriCorps NCCC Snack Room" after us.  Such a nice gift.  Once Miss Sheila finished that, we got to present our gift to the house.  Previously I said that Delta 4 worked on Big Blue before us.  They put together the "NCCC Dining Room" where we all eat and each team comes up with a picture or some way of representing themselves to show they helped on the house.  Chris and I decided to do this project for our team.  When we had team reveal we had to all act like we were willow trees.  That was how we found the 10 teammates we were going to have.  The two of us decided to make a replica of a willow tree with everybody's picture on it.  Instead of just regular pictures, we used pictures and wood to represent each member hanging on a branch of the tree.  This whole project was fun and we laughed and took goofy pictures of teammates.  The staff loved it!

The tree Chris and I made



My pose on the tree.



The wall in the kitchen with NCCC teams decorations

Miss Sheila's husband also was at lunch.  Man, did he leave us with good advice or what.  He started it off with a great chant that we can use and share with others.  He is the director of continuing education at Southern Miss University and you can tell he loves his job.  He talked to about 5 of us once lunch was over and captivated all of our attention.  He left some lasting advice to all of us that we can all use.  His most important part though was that he wanted us to remember we are all here for a reason.  We are not here for the reason that we signed up for AmeriCorps.  Some reason other than NCCC brought us all to R3SM to help out.  He wanted us to think of that reason and share it with the world.  He told us to use our voice and follow whatever road we want to take because it is up to us.  His advice is something I needed since I am struggling with some parts of this program and really needed some boost.  I am going to replay his words in my head for the remaining 5 months and remind myself I am here for a purpose.   

Tomorrow we head out to Vicksburg to campus for a week.  We have transition fun times to get through.  I can't wait to see people and hang out with my friends I have missed!  That's the best part of this program, I have met some of the best friends ever who will be my friends forever.  After the week of real serious transition work with a side of fun, I get to go HOME for 10 days!!! I can't wait to be at 10 Thomas for a whole ten days.  I plan on relaxing and doing NOTHING for this time with my family and friends.  See some of you then!



The plaque we got!



The coke machine with the plaque on the wall.
I am proud of my accomplishment, just a bit!





River 10 is used to carry heavy objects, always.

So, when I last posted, it was the 4th of July.  Stars and stripes forever.  What seemed like would be an awesome beach day turned into kind of shambles starting off with waking up.  We all wanted to leave at 8 all ready for the beach.  All 10 of us woke up around 8something and decided to leave an hour after desired time.  We all walked outside and saw our van with yet again, another flat tire.  This time we don't think the infamous tire slasher visited again, but simply just a flat.  So we got into the van, called all of the government places to get it fixed and finally reached probably the only worker in the U.S of A who was working on this national holiday.  The tow truck came to change our tire and we were finally on the road by like 11:30ish.  We got to the beach around 1, just in time for every cloud in the world to roll in.  We laid there for a while until we couldn't take the sand whipping at us any longer.  We found something to occupy our time which consisted of food.  We were back by about 8 and I was in bed by 9.  Not my ideal 4th, but what can ya do, next year will be better.

On Thursday we were going through our usual day doing odds and ends jobs, until the afternoon.  A glorious flat bed truck pulled up to Big Blue with 50 sheets of 12 foot dry wall.  What did we have to do with it all?  Oh that's right, carry it upstairs through the winding staircase that is creeky and 100 years old.  This took quite sometime.  We really loved doing this, complaint free. (not)  We all decided that our objective for 10 months is to see what the heaviest object will be that we carry as a team.  Telephone poles?  Drywall?  Only time will tell.  On the upside of carrying this drywall, we now got to start to drywall the entire upstairs.  This made us happy because we now can see the second floor coming together.  Darryl taught Sam, Jamie and I how to jump right into it.  He gave us a huge wall to finish by the end of the day, we did all but a little piece, pretty impressive is what he said.  That closed out Thursday.



River 10 at the museum.



Friday we actually did not have work.  Darryl is a busy man.  We thankfully have a lot to work on before we go back to campus with our portfolios for both parts of this spike and our debriefing meeting information.  Friday morning was used to go over all of this paperwork.  Friday afternoon we scheduled a tour at the African American Military History Museum.  It is located right near our house in Hattiesburg.  Miss Sheila is actually the president of the committee for the museum.  She and her husband are retired colonel's from the army and are featured in the museum.  Miss Sheila actually has a uniform on display in a case.  It was nice to learn some history of African American's through the military, especially what Miss Sheila did since she is our sponsor on this project.

We had the weekend off and we used it as such.  We decided to use Saturday and Sunday as recovery days.  Sleep, TV, movies, fast food (ew, yes I ate it) and lots of sitting around.  We actually ventured to Target one day and I bought 2 movies to add to our movie rotation.  One being Mrs. Doubtfire.  Best purchase yet.

Monday through Wednesday were used to put up drywall.  The all-star team, as Darryl refers to Sam, Jamie, and I, successfully put up almost 2 complete bathrooms and a good portion of the hallway.  This doesn't seem like a whole heck of a lot of drywall, but trust us, it took quite some time to measure out the lopsided house's walls, pipes, and floor boards.  Since Big Blue is 100 years old there aren't many straight edges.  That makes the drywall so much fun to put up!  I am just glad we feel like we are really making an effort to expedite the process upstairs.

Our first wall.

This morning we got to go into the community of Hattiesburg to see some of the homes that R3SM has helped rebuild or repair because of Hurricane Katrina.  We got to meet 2 gentlemen who live in these particular homes.  It was a pretty eye opening morning.  One home took 4 years to be put on the list.  This man had to change his house to be completely handicap accessible because during the hurricane he had a stroke caused by the stress of the hurricane on his life.  His whole house has since been remodeled by R3SM volunteers like NCCC, Habitat for Humanity, and Christian Church Volunteers.  Another home we got to visit was done with phase 1 of remodeling.  R3SM is waiting for the funding for phase 2 to complete the roofing and siding of the house.  We learned that this man also waited 4 years to get his house on the repair list, but during these 4 years he still lived in his home.  He had no electricity, running water, or a bathroom.  It is amazing to see the whole street that he lived on had to be completely repaired by volunteers because of the hurricane.  The morning was pretty moving for me to see the individuals who own the house and who were effected by the hurricane.  I needed this morning for my sanity at this point.  Even when you think something is wrong with your life, it could definitely be worse.

For the rest of today and tomorrow we have ISP's.  Tomorrow is at the Humane Society in town, playing with dogs, puppies and other animals.  Today is at a farmer's market, my new love in life.  Hopefully when I go back to campus next week I will have almost completed by 80 required hours for that particular part of my required hours of service.  Pretty laid back week.  Yesterday I got to go with Miss Sheila to price out vending machines because I got a Coke machine donated to the house for volunteers to use.  She now wants me to get a vending machine, fine by me, as long as we get a plaque to represent our beautiful Coke machine we got donated since clearly I love this soda too much.

That's all for me.  All I can say is I am ready for break.  I am more than excited to go home in 15 days.  I really can't wait to be in Burlington for 10 days for a much needed break.  At the end of this week I will have hit over 1,000 hours of community service since February 27.  I feel as though that calls for a break full of nothing.  Perfect.  See y'all in almost 2 weeks!!

Good things are goin' on, down in Mississippi y'all

Hello, y'all.  River 10 is still in Hattiesburg, Mississippi y'all.  We are working hard with R3SM to get their second floor close to ready for some volunteers to have a place to stay.  We are doing jobs while the plumbers and electricians get their acts together and come on down to help out in Big Blue.  Until then, we've had a full almost 2 weeks since I last posted worth of work.



window framing



 Last week Sam, Jamie, and I installed window frames.  The ouside of the window frames and the windows were installed by a Canadian volunteer group, and let me tell you, the only good thing from Canada is for sure the hockey, they had quite some trouble installing these windows.  That's where the 3 amigos came in.  We went to each window on the second floor and installed the inside frame.  This took quite some measuring and advanced knowledge of construction, which clearly we all have.  After our site supervisor, Darryl the great, taught us how to successfully measure each window, use different saws, and use the all powerful nail gun, we were off to the races.  This was our project from Monday to Thursday.  The three of us had some minor issues along the way, and I would like to share one with y'all.  As we were on probably window twenty-somethingish, we were standing in the room that needed 2 windows done.  We had the air compressor, ladder, nail gun, boards cut, and the wide open nice 100 degree heat blowing through the open window.  Sam was on the ladder nice and high.  Most people know if you've seen a ladder that there is a part that can swing out to hold items such as a paint can, or something of that nature.  We used it to hold the nail gun.  As we noticed that a board we measured was too long, we had Sam get down to check it out for herself.  As the three of us were staring at an open window, we heard a cord winding.  We looked down and the nail gun was headed out the window of the second floor.  We all grabbed for it like a scene out of a movie.  We all poked our heads out of the window to see it dangling in front of an office window on floor 1.  We know the office it was in front of, but that will remain a secret.  It was kind of the laugh the three of us needed and a moment we needed to regenerate some new energy in us to finish the project.  We, in total, completed 30 windows.  Day one was slow, only completing 7 windows.  By Thursday, we had 9 done by lunch, bringing our day total for the last day to 15.  We dominated this project. 

Friday was a slower work day, and since we worked so hard for the week, we got to get off work a little early.  This was perfect for 3 of us since we piled into a little red car and headed to New Orleans for the weekend to visit some of our Amerifriends.  Let me tell you, I love New Orleans a lot.  I had a great time and it was a nice escape to see some of my best friends in the program that aren't on my team.  I look forward to plenty more of those weekends in spikes to come.

This week is kind of a short week for us.  Monday, I helped a few teammates construct the studs and outline of a bathroom.  We had to fit the shower into a small area and measure, cut and nail in boards to frame the bathroom.  Since a few of us were on this project on Monday, we continued it today.  We put in another bathroom on the same floor. Yesterday was a little more complicated because we were teaching people how to do certain tasks because a group of us had done it on Monday.  I successfully taught how to measure the bathroom out and successfully hammered my knuckle on my index finger.  Large swollen bruise, but worth it. 

It has been extremely hot, but I am really enjoying learning more about construction.  Last week, we also learned our round 3 spike project! Round 3 already, kind of gross how fast time is flying.  Our team is going to Tallulah, Louisiana to help transform a school into a place where an after school program will take place.  Our team will help get the facility ready with playgrounds, landscaping, and minor construction.  We also get to plan and implement a football and soccer camp.  I am pretty pumped.  We will be staying on campus in good ol Vicksburg, so I will get comfortable with my dorm.  More details to follow on this project!

getting the bathroom alllll ready



Johnny and Darryl doing some work



such skill



Finished product!

Anyway, that is all for now.  We get today off, and River 10 is headed to Gulfport, Mississippi to enjoy the beach!  Happy 4th of July to you all, especially everyone in OGT, my favorite place in the world.  I miss everyone, but I will be home July 27 for 10 days.  Can not wait to see some of you!