One long Fu King week..

Hello readers! We finished two whole weeks of disaster relief.  Last week from Monday-Thursday morning we went back to Mr. Davis's house.  By Thursday morning we had his house completely gutted out.  He was so happy that we got to finish his house for him.  I am really happy because he is such a good guy.  Unfortunately the rain, again, didn't hold out for us and since Mr. Davis is kind of sickly, he didn't like sitting in his tractor in the rain.  Monday and Tuesday we had to end work a little early because of how hard it was raining.  On Tuesday, we worked at his house and he had a few of us outside talking.  At one point he was asking us about the food we like to eat and we got to talking about how he has been in a motel since June.  The room is for his wife, himself, and their 5 big dogs.  They have to go out to eat for every meal and buy dog food for the dogs every week.  I can't imagine how much this all would cost.  With that being said, we told him that we like all food.  He told us about this great fried chicken place in town called Hip Hop and he wanted to show us where it is located so we would know for future reference.  Instead of just seeing the place, he bought each member of our team a lunch.  It was really so nice of him considering what he is going through.  He told us that it was the least he could do to thank us for our hard work.  I gotta say, my body wasn't thanking him too much for the food.  It was great, just grease on grease.  I won't ever deny a free meal though!  Wednesday and Thursday morning we went back to Mr. Davis's house and finished it!  It was an accomplishment for us because it was our first house completely finished.  The reason we had a little delay finishing his home was because we didn't have the proper face masks to go into some of his rooms that had serious mold.  We got the face masks, made sure we were sealed tight, screamed at each other for a few minutes to enjoy the sweet new face gear and then went straight into the house.  We worked really well as a team on this house and got it finished for the Davis family to start to move back to normalcy once their construction begins.  I learned a lot from this house and from Mr. Davis.  He was a great man to work for.



Jamie, Sam and I with our new masks



Thursday afternoon and Friday we went back to Miss Thompson's house.  This was the house that we were at the week before that had quite an effect on me.  Again, it was hard to work in the conditions and to see a woman living in the home she does.  It is still hard for me to comprehend that all of this is going on in our country and for some of us, it was hard to even go back into the house.  Thursday after work was nice to cook together and to sit and talk about how the day had made us all feel.  I won't lie I shed my first disaster tears thinking about this particular home.  We made sure to tell our sponsor how we feel because she cares about us so much and she took care of us by giving each one of us a Happy Seed.  Happy Seeds are a product of a sculptor who didn't want to throw away his scraps of pottery and he made these little seeds that are just plain smiles.  It's the little things in life like Suzanne caring and giving us such simple trinkets to make our day turn around.  Friday we went back to Miss Thompsons home.  We started on replacing her floor for her.  Hopefully by the end of tomorrow we can have a whole new floor put in for her so that eventually when the roofers come her home can start to be more complete.  We all just have to dig deep and get this home done for her and know we are making her life better by being there to be the first steps toward a better home.

This weekend was actually the first two sunny days in Lake City in two weeks.  We were kind of feeling the effects of the rain and clouds.  I took advantage of every ray of sun light yesterday and stayed by the pool all day.  You could probably tell if you saw me now.  After basking in the sun for a good 5 hours, I went to church with a few team members then we went for a nice little dinner at a local Chinese food place.  This place was called, kid you not, Fu King.  I bought a t-shirt don't worry.  Fun fact about Fu King is that Marc Zuckerberg (creator of FaceBook) wanted to buy their store sign, but they said no.  How Fu King awesome is that?!  Today Suzanne hooked us up with sweet free passes to float down the Ichetucknee River.  We did just that.  It was a fun relaxing day for us.  We are truly blessed and spoiled to have Suzanne as a sponsor here.  She takes care of us as if we are her children and just really cares about each one of us.  She showed up to the pool yesterday with $15 gift cards to the local movie theater for each one of us.  She really is someone special and is doing such good for this world and I think we are all lucky to know her.



New T for me!



This week was a hard one emotions wise for the whole team.  It really had an effect on me to see certain homes and situations.  We are trying to take advantage of different outlets while we are here to escape the craziness that is disaster relief.  The county is now worried about Isaac hitting and causing more flooding her because the water levels in Lake City haven't gone down in some places.  We know that this county does NOT need any more rain and I hope it strays the path of lLake City a little bit.  It may not be too bad here, however, it will be bad where more AmeriCorps teams are.  My friends that are on other teams will be in some of the areas predicted to get hit the worst so keep all of us in your thoughts this week.  Let's throw some up to the big man that the damage won't be as bad as some past storms and all of us are safe.  I will keep you all updated, but let's hope nothing happens with Isaac. 

That's all for now for me.  Hope everyone has a good week preparing for the new school year starting soon, unless you are starting this week, good luck! 

Disaster Relief week 1

Hey everyone! We arrived safely in lake City Florida last Saturday late afternoon.  Once we arrived, we were literally thrown right into orientation of the project.  Our sponsor, Suzanne, was at the hotel to greet us and explain what is going on in Columbia County, where we work.  She is awesome.  She is the CEO of this counties part of Catholic Charities.  She literally has her hand in so many different organizations in and around Lake City.  She knows everyone and anyone doing anything to help another person.  She kept telling us how blessed the county is to have us and she was just excited to get to know each one of us right away.  Suzanne showed us a slide show of pictures from the flooding before some of the roads became roads again.  The pictures were horrifying.  It was so sad to see such terrible conditions people had to endure before they got some sort of help or support.  After our brief orientation with her, we got the night to relax after such a long 10 hour day of driving.

Sunday we had the morning off and more orientation in the afternoon.  I took the morning to lay at the pool after church and try to get some sun.  The orientation we had was with Suzanne and David, our supervisor.  We learned the background and history of Catholic Charities from Suzanne and more about the county in general from David.  This county is in a literal disaster even almost 2 months post storm.  We saw more pictures and an aerial view of the county that FEMA filmed.  Water is still everywhere.  Once we had our orientation taken care of, the county and Suzanne took us to a Chinese buffet for lupper.  Lunch supper if you will.  There we got to meet Danny, Suzanne’s husband, who is serving as our site supervisor, kind of.  He works with us daily, but he is a volunteer for Catholic Charities.  We ate with them, told them more about us, and learned more about the county. 

Monday was day one of work.  This day we were supposed to be taking an inventory of which homes needed help still.  However, we were going to homes which we found out were empty, the owners were at home, or the area didn’t get water in their homes.  This day was kind of slow and it concerned us.  Tuesday however, we went right at it.  We got to work at Miss Hatcher’s home.  Miss Hatcher is an elderly woman who was living alone when the storm hit.  She was living with literally 86 years of her own belongings in the house.  The storm washed all of her belongings everywhere all over her house and yard.  The water line in some rooms where the water hit was up to my shoulders.  Can you imagine living through this?  She is in her late 80’s and thankfully has her son living on the same property, next door.  Her trailer from her back yard was blown across the creek in her yard almost 50 yards away.  It was amazing.  This day had my emotions running everywhere from feeling bad for her to feeling sad knowing that this woman was going through such a hard time like this.  We will hopefully be back with her later on to help finish her home.  This day of work was emotionally and physically draining.  It was kind of a wake up to what the entire spike is going to be like.  It is going to be no joke that is for sure.



Outside of Miss Hatcher's house. The water came up that high on her screen

Wednesday we woke up for PT in the morning where the sun was rising in Florida and it was already about 85 degrees at 5:30am.  Tough, but we powered through.  This day we worked with Miss Thompson.  She lived in a trailer that had floors that were so wet and giving out and a roof that was caving in.  We had to tear up her rug in the room she was solely living.  It had 2 chairs, one that she slept on, the other was holding water.  Her yard had debris from inside her home all over it.  We had to maintain the yard and the inside of the house.  Halfway through the day it started to do a Florida down pour.  What we didn’t realize until we were in the car for about 15 minutes was that we moved buckets before to do her floor and they were catching water from the rain.  2 of my teammates had to run in and replace the buckets, where they found her sitting in her car.  She goes in her car during rain storms because her roof is that bad.  This part of the day really had an effect on me since I can’t imagine that being something I had to do during my life.  I really am learning to appreciate more and more every day the house I live in.

Thursday we got to work at the food bank with Suzanne, something she helps out at with Catholic Charities twice a month.  This morning was amazing.  Even before the food arrived there were people waiting.  We organized a canned goods table, bread table, and desserts.  The line from 9-12 was consistently LONG.  It was amazing to see how many families needed assistance.  We gave food to 105 families with a total of 284 people in the 3 hours we helped.  I got to color with some children teaching them about fruits and vegetables and I was in heaven.  A couple of them were so cute.  I asked one little girl how you go about cooking eggplant, which she told me was a “veggie” and she said, and I quote, “you slice it, you bake it, and it turns into eggs!”  Had to be the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.  What really hit me was when I had to help some of the adults read the sheets they needed to fill out before receiving their food.  Some of them couldn’t even read the sheets.  It was amazing to me to have this be the situation because I am lucky I have graduated college and have a degree when some of these people who are much older than I am barely completed the 3^rd grade.  It made me, again, be thankful for my education and life I have.  Once 12 hit, Suzanne takes all of her help to lunch at this UNREAL Florida seafood restaurant.  I got baked scallops and catfish.  IT WAS AMAZING.  So good.  She then let us have the afternoon off!  Much needed, the entire team napped.





Team at the food bank.

  Friday, we worked with Mr. Davis.  His home was also in the storm and it was better off than the first two homes, but everyone has a story.  We got to actually muck and gut his home.  We tore some of his walls down and helped him make progress to start the rebuilding process.  Danny said he was impressed with how fast we got the walls down and how neatly we worked.  Obviously, we are the best.  Mr Davidson was a great man.  He was telling us his stories.  He and his wife have been staying at the Super 8 since the storm and he is just ready to have a home again.  His stories had a big effect on us all and we were happy we were there to help.  We are going back to finish his home tomorrow to start off our new week.


Before inside Mr. Davis's house.





After we gutted the inside.

Yesterday we had an all day ISP which put me over 80 ISP hours!  We need at least 80 to graduate so I am good to go.  The ISP was a fundraiser for the families who had damage on their homes.  It was an all day music festival.  Really cool local bands came to perform and it was a cool day.  We relaxed last night watching gLee reruns and went to bed early.  Today I got up early to go to the gym and for a run.  It helps that the cleaning lady came to wake me up, tough life we have a cleaning lady. 

This project is going to be a tough one mentally and physically.  I know it will take a serious toll on me, but I am ready and that’s what bed is for.  a fresh clean pair of sheets every night and a nicely cleaned room.  Pretty neat living in a hotel if I do say so myself.  That’s it for week 1 of disaster relief.  Our sponsor starts each day with a word of the day, I think I will do one for the week.  My personal word for this week is gratitude.  Burlington lost an awesome person over the weekend who I know means a lot to my family and the people of Lake City have lost things that we usually daily take for granted.  I am going to go through this week being grateful for everything and everyday I have.  Things like this project and the loss that I know people of our town are going through help you to realize that life is short and we all need to be grateful for what we do have.  Hope y’all have a good week!

Back in action

Hello readers in reader land...it has been quite some time since I last posted.  Mainly because I was on summer break for 10 days.  10 awesome days at home.  It was full of time with family, friends, sleep, relaxing, golf, plenty of beer, and much more.  The essentials mainly.  I caught up with my friends I have missed, caught up with family, golf my best 9 holes ever, and slept past 6am on Monday through Friday which hasn't really happened in 5 months.  Needless to say I had a great time.  It went by fast, but it was the break I needed to come back to campus and feel refreshed for round 3.

So we got back to campus on Monday the 6th.  Tuesday we were thrown right into transition stuff.  SO fun.  We had classes, briefing meetings, random things to fill the day, per usual.  Our team had our briefing on our project in Tallulah, Louisiana.  Before the briefing we were kind of apprehensive about the whole project, but after the meeting, we felt better.  There were plenty of opportunities for creativity in the project working with children, mucking and gutting a school, and interacting with the community.  We had our River 10 creative juices flowing.  Vicksburg wasn't looking so bad as a place to live after all.  Wednesday was supposed to be used as a clearance meeting day, packing, cleaning, etc.  HOWEVER, around 10 or so our Unit Leader and Team Leader called a meeting with our team to share some news with us.  Our Tallulah project has been cancelled because of asbestos taking over the entire school we were supposed to be working in.  Zero good.  SO River 10 will be heading to Lake City, Florida on Disaster Relief for Tropical Storm Debby!  The main idea of AmeriCorps is to be responders to natural disasters such as a tropical storm or hurricane.  I was really hoping that we would have to be apart of a disaster relief team (I know that sounds terrible, but hey whatever) because I know that it is work that is essential to helping a community in dire need.  One of the main reasons why I joined AmeriCorps was to go on a disaster relief.  Here I am in that position, and I am really excited.

So let me give y'all a little overview of the next 4, what could potentially be 6, weeks in Lake City, Lake Lake City B*tch (song reference for you rap fans)...
Our project takes place in Lake City which is a little inland located about an hour from Tallahassee Florida.  Lake City is located in Columbia County which is one of two counties hit hardest by Tropical Storm Debby.  These two counties are among two of the poorest counties in Florida, two that were affected the most by Tropical Storm Debby, and these counties are two that have the highest rates of unemployment. Needless to say, this area needs a team to come help.  Lake City pumped 395 MILLION gallons of water so far and has 485 homes or buildings damaged.  As of July 24, a month after Debby hit, debris pick-up started.  Some homes flooded with up to 5 feet of water, some were flooded all the way to ceilings, while others flooded with a little less, but still a significant enough to be damaged. 

What we will be doing to help...
Our team will be canvasing for the first few days.  We will be going door to door to areas most impacted to do needs assessments.  We will be cross-referencing the existing needs that are on a list to see what has already been completed by other organizations.  Once that is done, we will go into homes to muck and gut the homes.  What this means in a nut shell is we will be going into homes and pretty much remove debris that can no longer be used in the house.  We will basically be leaving the frames of the house, if they are not completely damaged.  This will be a majority of our project with hopes of completing 28-30 homes by the end of what they want 4 weeks, potentially all 6 of this spike.  We will also be delivering disaster recovery information door to door to the home owners.  Since Lake City is still a disaster zone, we will also be in town cleaning debris from the roads to make the city roads 100% functional since right now 95% are functional roads. 

Our housing...
We are a liiiiiiiiittle spoiled by our housing situation.  Most disaster housing is not ideal for a team to stay in.  However, we are being housed in the Cabot Lodge.  Yes, a hotel for 4 weeks.  Pretty nice digs we at least hope.  There is a pool, wi-fi, free breakfast and access to a kitchen at the Emergency Operations Center down the street.  All of the girls on our team will be sharing a nice cozy hotel room and so will the boys.  We are pretty excited for the hotel.

Our sponsor...
Our main sponsor is Catholic Charities.  This organization's mission is to provide services to anyone in need regardless of race or religion.  There are a number of organizations working in Lake City to help repair and rebuild, but they are our main sponsor.  We will also be working with Columbia County which is the county Lake City is in.  We have 2 main site supervisors that we will meet when we arrive.

We are leaving tomorrow (Saturday) at 8am and we couldn't be more excited.  There are plenty of opportunities for ISP's while there and even the potential to sneak out for a little team trip to Disney World.  The staff has been telling us how excited they are for us and how great it is we are going.  I am really excited to be put in a situation where I know the place I am going needs immediate help.  Today we are all packing and preparing for the next 6 hectic weeks ahead of us.  The drive is about 8-9 hours and we go right into orientation when we get there Saturday night and Sunday.  Work begins Monday in full force.  The 9 member of River 10 are ready to take on this disaster relief project!

That is all I have for now.  Very exciting news for us.  I hope all is well wherever you are.  Big Happy Birthday to Momma C! 

I will fill y'all in on new stuff next week when I have some time! Keep it classy.

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!

Up On the Roof...not anymore



Big Blue, our home and work.



Hello readers.  I am in Hattiesburg, Mississippi y'all now.  It is hot as hell and to be quite honest, I haven't complained too much, yet.  We are here working with R3SM and are getting adjusted quite well.  Since I last posted we have met our sponsors and have gotten our feet wet in Big Blue's construction project.  Let me give you a little run down on our sponsors.  Miss Sheila is our main sponsor.  She is an ex-colonel and runs her company as such.  She told us that she would meet with us once a week and discuss our progress in the project and just to catch up with our team.  She is tough, but I feel some people on our team need someone that is as tough as Miss Sheila.  Darryl is our site supervisor and works with us everyday.  He seems to really enjoy the job we are doing with him and loves the house completely.  He is teaching us all different things everyday and is really helping us learn about construction.  He is hilarious and jokes around with us all day.  We were told that by coming here we could build the second floor, or most, of the second floor of Big Blue.  When we arrived, we found out that the plumbing and the electric work is not done yet.  Due to this little problem, we are at a kind of stand still for the process of the house.  We have been doing little odd jobs such as painting, sanding, random touch ups, some floor work and cleaning.  These jobs have kept us busy, but we are really looking forward to what we will be completing by the end of this round.

Tuesday was our first day of work here.  We got an orientation to R3SM in the morning from Miss Sheila and then got into work right after.  Our team put together saw horses where we can do some work on.  It was a pretty easy way, but a good way to adjust to the new project.  

Wednesday morning we woke up at 5am for PT because our new work hours are 7-3 due to the HOT HOT heat of the day.  Everyone got up for PT without a fuss and we all were working out pretty hard.  It was about 5:25 and then we heard a loud hissing noise.  I thought we were going to have to move because of sprinklers coming on, but boy was I wrong.  We looked over at the parking lot where our van and the other van was parked that we picked up from Maryland.  There was a man going from our hissing van to the other van, when he then made that van hiss louder.  This individual was slashing our tires, right in front of us.  We all immediately ran into the house and called 9-1-1-.  The police came quickly, but nothing could be done because the man was gone.  It was a nice wake up call for us to be safe around our house.  The tires eventually got fixed on both vans, but it took some time.  Jamie and I painted an island in our beautiful kitchen.  Delta 4, another team from campus,  was here before us last round and they completed the first floor.  We got to paint the island because of all of the work that Delta 4 did, the island wasn't completed.  Tuesday I worked on this with Jamie and we got it done and it looks good, if I do say so myself. 
We were all just amazed all day that we witnessed a man actually do something like that to our vans.



The blue island in our kitchen.

Thursday found me doing more painting on the house.  We found out on Sunday, Father's Day, that David on our team became a father.  He took a personal day because it was National Go Skate day and he is an avid skate boarder, so we took it upon ourselves to surprise David with a baby celebration.  We went straight to Walmart after work and bought blue balloons and baby outfits and cute baby stuff for David and his son, Leyek.  He is adorable, the pictures look exactly like David and we are all so happy for him.  We have a nice roof area of the house that past teams have used as a place to escape and it has a great view of the sunset.  We went up there after the baby celebration and sat and watched the sunset as a team.  I was singing Up On the Roof by the Drifters the whole time.  Apparently a neighbor saw us because we found our Friday that we aren't supposed to be up there and we are banned, for the rest of spike! Awesome.

Friday was our last day of work for the week.  Friday marked 12 days straight of work for River 10.  We were exhausted.  It kind of dragged and seemed to go slowly.  I was on painting duty of a staircase for the day.  We ended work and literally did nothing for the night. 



Another major room we are working on, both bathrooms.



One major room we are focusing on.



Saturday we woke up at 9:30 for PT.  BIG mistake.  In Hattiesburg Mississippi, y'all at 9:30 am it is already 92 degrees and hot.  The run, workout, and sweat killed me.  I literally will never wake up again and do PT at this time.  We all lounged all day in the AC in our bedroom until the girls all went shopping.  I didn't spend a dime and I am proud of myself.  I instead tried on gorgeous lime green heels for the girls while they were dress shopping.  We got back and a few of us went down the street to the Boom Boom Room, a local bar.  Apparently the man, Benny, who owns it loves AmeriCorps and gives us a large all you can drink discount.  It will come in handy when I am not saving money for a weekend trip like I am for next weekend.  Today was used as a literally relaxing day.  This whole weekend and week I have really done myself some serious service by watching Laguna Beach, Newlyweds, and SVU all the time.  No big deal. 

Tomorrow starts a new work week, with hopefully some new work for me!  I love Hattiesburg and it is a lot of fun.  This weekend a couple of teammates and I are going to New Orleans to visit some friends from other teams.  I am so excited.  Can't wait actually.  Until then I will work hard and enjoy Big Blue and the hot hot heat of Hattiesburg.  Have a good week!