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.
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!
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| The tree Chris and I made |
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| My pose on the tree. |
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| 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!
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| The plaque we got! |
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The coke machine with the plaque on the wall.
I am proud of my accomplishment, just a bit! |
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