Hola! Estoy aqui! HOORAY! Anyways, last post left off with answering phone calls in Galveston, TX for the Emergency Operations Center. Well we have been doing that ever since but in flucuating hours and weird schedules. One minute we are working 12-hour shifts for three days, then we have been told we are going to be working in 3 shifts of 8-hours. What I mean is that the first pair of Raven 3 come in from 7AM- 3PM, while then the next three teammates relieve them from 3PM-11PM, and then finally the last two (who happen to be myself and Joni) answer the phones from 11PM-7AM. We are starting to get the hang of getting use to the hours. I have especially gotten accostumed to staying up the wee hours of the morning, which definitely makes it difficult to sleep during the day. First couple nights I think I only got 3 hours a sleep per night just because my body was not use to staying up so late. I mean in college I was up late for other reasons like studying, hanging out with friends, or simply being "slap-happy". But in this situation it was working for 8 hours and then sleeping in the Dispatch corner of their office on air mattresses with all the lights on...talk about pretty hard to get some quality shut-eye! Joni and I managed to do just fine though. Even the Dispatch employees kept really quiet when they were working in consideration for us. Although, not only were the lights on in the office BUT there was this screeching, loud pitched tone that was buzzing all the time against the wall. It happened to be the alarm system. Oh well!
So like mentioned before, we were on our 12 hour shift for about 2 days until we got switched to 8 hours. My shift to be completely honest is very boring because no one really is awake to call that early in the morning or during that time. We average on our shift roughly 9 calls per night. It is usually a race to see who can answer the call first. We even have bets on when the first call will ring AND how many will dial the EOC number. On the contrary, it seems like the afternoon and morning shifts seem to get the most calls and have been ringing off the hook these last couple days. Officials have finally opened up the Galveston Island for residents to come back in only one condition...if they obey the curfew. The curfew was from 6PM-6AM but has been bumped up 2 hours to 8PM-6AM. If or any residents disobey this mandate, that means the people of Galveston will be fined $2,000! WOW! That is a ton. Totally not worth it!!
Joni and I have really gotten to know the 2 ladies that have been with us. Mary and Carolyn are super sweet. They, sadly, are victims of the Hurricane. They are currently living in the San Luis hotel about 10 minutes from the station because their houses were affected by the storm. Both are in the process of working things out with FEMA and the Red Cross. It has been really fun hanging out with them watching movies, making power point presentations, and doing Mad Libs with them both. They even have gotten a taste of Joni and I dueting to RENT songs and Sonny/Cher "I Got You Babe".
Slowly but surely more and more stores and places are opening up for people. Kroger, Walgreens, Walmart, and some gas stations are open during the day. We have been able to go out to those places for health and wellness runs and has been great. Our living accomadations now have been switched from the Dispatch small office corner to camping in tents in the Airport parking lot. We were in the Dispatch room for about a week. Now there are 2 other Perry Point teams that are with us doing logistic work with the Forestry department. We couldn't fit all 3 teams in the office so we had to pack up and move our belongings. But all 3 teams are in the parking lot on air mattresses, about 3 people per tent. The disadvantage thing for me when I get the chance to lay down and go to bed is that I am actually sleeping during the day...which means while the heat is blazing down in between 85-90 degrees, I am sweating profusely. Luckily and fortunately there is a nearby air-conditioned tent I have stayed in the last 2 nights.
Food has been wonderful as the Salvation Army is supplying all the meals. What usually happens is we will get breakfast in the morning and then sack lunches and then get in line to get dinner. Tons and tons of organizations are here donating food, water, ice and any other neccessity. It is an easy commute, actually a 20-step walk, to the food line during the day. A breakfast and dinner buffet is set up in the parking lot near us for us to get food during the alotted times. We have gotten a couple toiletry packages both from the Army and Red Cross. Those things definitely come in handy! We have been exposed to the television cameras a couple times while here on the island. Not sure if we made the news or not or the editors used our shots in their stories. On the parking lot there is also free laundry services, very warm shower trailers, and cordial people to talk to. Serveral volunteers from all over have come to help with the relief. I got the chance to talk to a couple of them, one from Mexico, another from Alabama, and one from Arizona...all sharing and coming together in that same bond...helping re-build! It is great to see the ammount of support that is down here.
Our latest update on how much longer we are staying in Galveston is until October 11th. We are then going to be assessed and probably either finishing up 4th round in Galveston OR heading to our orginal project in Baton Rouge, LA. We are not sure, it is basically based on what Chris Quaka (the Wolf Unit Leader) says and we abide by his ruling. Andrea wants to stay down here and finish what we started, but I could careless really what we end up doing to be honest. I just want to help people the best we can and wherever the need might be. Obviously Baton Rouge is needing it hardcore after the tornados during Gustav destroyed a lot of homes and properties, but at the same time Galveston is in shambles as well. I think our Raven 3 team is saying is we are wanting to do more challenging work other than just answer phones all day. We actually want to get our hands dirty. We are just waiting in the wings for further details from the head officials on the island.
As we enter the weekend, we are finally getting a day off which is Sunday. We plan on leaving the island and venturing out to Houston, TX area or somewhere to do something fun. We can't really do anythign in the parking lot where we are staying or leave anywhere because of the curfew, so hopefully we can spend the day with laughter and fun. I will try to send an update on what is going a couple more times before we leave the island. All in all, it has been a great time being the first Americorps team down in Galveston and assisting the victims to our best ability, BUT I would hope after when the phones completely die down we can do more. It is sad not seeing the whole team work together on the site. The rotating shifts is totally messing up our social time with the team. Hopefully we can all sit down and have a nice relaxing time together and re-group. The EOC should have only 2-3 people on shift answer calls at a time, instead of 5-6.
Hope you all understand what we are doing is very rewarding at the same time helpful for these people who are suffering. It is amazing some of these stories people tell you and basically open up to you in times like these. Sometimes I am on the phone with people for 10 minutes just because they are lonely and need someone to chat with. Most of the residents vacated to Austin or Dallas or even out of state. You get great joy out of helping them cope and get through it. Hopefully in the near future that the city will get power throughout and have running water in all areas. There has been a lot of mis-information given by the law enforcement people, the mayor, and even the higher up authorities. It is making the people upset and confused usually resulting in them yelling and expressing their anger towards us answering the phones. We can't do anything about it other than open up an ear or two and get them through it.
More happy faces and less frowns is what is needed on the island.
Chianakas out!
Friday, September 26, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
58 days of Americorps REMAINING!!!!
Where to begin...where to begin??? Oh yeah...I remember now...I left off from last post with my mini Spike experience in Delaware, Fall Break, applying to become a Team Leader, and the craziness with my 4th round project. Now bare with me...this yet again will be another long blog because so much has happened within the last month and a half.
First off, when Summer of Service program ended at the tail end of July this summer, we were allowed a 9-day summer break. I chose to head back home in Crystal Lake to visit the family and friends. While being home I got to sleep in my bed, work at my Dad's warehouse for some extra cash, mowed the yard, hung out with my next door neighbors (including seeing the new 2 month-old baby Charlie), and finally earning some ISP hours with my local park district. All in all, home was the same...nothing had changed other than it was nice to be home after an absence of 7 months. Good to catch up with high school friends and visit the neighbors.
I flew back after my 9-days were up and arrived in Perry Point ready to see what needed to be done before all the 3rd round teams came back. I knew that I wasn't going to be heading back to my Raven 3 team so it was an adventure to find out what actually the campus had in store for the CL's. We were told when we came back to our houses that 17 of us crew leaders were going to drive down to Delaware and work with the Delaware State Parks for about 8 days. That was such a wonderful experience. Since we were all close as crew leaders it made the work easier and more fun. They had placed us in 3 work groups that did various of tasks in those 6 work days. Not only was the work rewarding, but we also lived 5 minute walking distance to the beach. Work days consisted of beginning at 8:30 AM and ending at 3 PM...which gave us enough sunlight to walk down to the beach and soak up some rays. The different jobs they gave us to peform were: painting stables, working and cutting down shrubs, getting rid of invasive species, and did some clear trailing. Overall, it was a great time performing those tasks in Delaware. Our living conditions were in a camp house where guys slept in a room full of bunk beds and the girls slept in a seperate room on the other side of the building with bunk beds. We went shopping for groceries and cooked our own meals UNLESS it was lunch in which our sweet sponsor, Rob, bought all of us some sub sandwiches and sandwich wraps with chips. Very amazing person he was...Rob worked with Americorps before and is the program coordinator and volunteer coordinator in the Delaware that sets up people like Americorps NCCC and others that are wanting to help out in the immediate area. Some other cool things I did while I was there were: putting up a twine fence with PVC pipes along a selected area of the Delaware beach that protected any predators from attacking the endangered species, also I assisted with clearing high grasses in order to create a railroad track for a cannon at Camp Henlopen. In conclusion, the Delaware mini spike project was rewarding and basically like another vacation just in the fact we had easy work hours and a beach waiting for us after.
Next came, the decision to become a team leader for the up and coming 2009 Americorps NCCC campaign. I was convinced to sign up and apply to be one thanks to several outside sources. One being Summer of Service, working with those kids changed my mind from being on the fence 50/50 to being more like 70 percent YES and 30 percent NO. My experience with the 5 week program was wonderful and something I really enjoyed. My next encounter came from talking to other friends and Americorps peers that were applying for next year's excursion and they really told me how awesome it will be to be on "team green" and have a group of ten 18-24 year olds. So what I ended up doing on my 8 day fall break was spend time filling out the application for Team Leader Perry Point next session. I am kind of excited to see if I actually get the position because I think it will be a challenging, yet an amazing leadership chance to really booster up the resume. And it doesn't hurt to serve your country for another 10 months, I figure that I am young and capable to do so, so why not give back now...right?
Along with filling out the TL application, I got to hang out with some friends I really didn't hang out with during our CTI training which was different and awesome at the same time. I lived with one of my house mates and we tried to make the time spent productively. I teamed up with 4 other friends and traveled down to Baltimore, MD and worked at an ISP at a place called Moveable Feast. Basically what we did was clean the kitchens and storage rooms that made it more accessible for the cooks/chefs to prepare meals for clients that are suffering from illnesses/cancer and even females with breast cancer. We worked there for 8 hours and then later that night walked to where the Baltimore Orioles played and caught a baseball game there. We got 20 dollar seats and ended up sitting about 18 rows from the 1st base dugout...super fun even though the Orioles are super bad!! On thursday night of fall break I ended up going out with some friends still in Perry Point to celebrate our friend Katie's 21st birthday. It was very informal with a cake and one large gift in a bag which I picked up and bought from the Dollar General store. She loved all the little nick-nack gifts because all pertained to the type of personality she possesses. Later that weekend, I volunteered to drive a shuttle van to pick up fellow Americorps members at the Baltimore airport. I did that on Sunday.
I completely forgot to mention that my team leader, Andrea, appointed me as the team's ATL for 4th round AND when I went to the ATL meeting the next morning (before fall break) and found out that I was selected along with 45 other NCCC Perry Pointers to attend the White House south lawn and watch President Bush speak on volunteerism. When that day came along the ones that got selected were SUPER stoked and eager to potentially meet the President. Monday rolled around and all that were chosen to attend the White House gathered in the morning in the 15-passenger vans and headed to DC. We arrived to DC around noon and walked toward the mounds and mounds of people waiting in line to get into the south lawn. After waiting for about an hour in the hot, sweltering heat we realized this long line was not moving an inch, so we ended up walking in front of everyone and seeing if Americorps was on the list. After several Corps members attempted to check their name on the list, the national director of NCCC came by and attempted to get us all in. We later came to a conclusion that someone back in the Perry Point office completely messed up and didn't follow through with our trip and failed all of us. We all looked like fools not getting into the President's speech. Super bummed out. People were sympathetic when they walked out from the speech and said they had talked about Americorps...and that point we were irritated. BUT...instead of completely doing nothing, one of the White House representatives offered for all 50 of us to go and get the tour of the White House and take pictures. Now this wasn't the actual White House, it was more like a house that had different rooms dedicated to past-Presidents and where they hung out, ate, or dined in. I will be posting the pictures on facebook in the near future. When we got back from the busy day of basically nothing, it was funny to hear all the jeers and laughter from our buddies back in Perry Point after hearing about what had happened.
NOW...onto the important stuff...and that is 4th Round! WAH-WOOO!
We had our project brief before we left for fall break and we were orginally going to go to Baton Rouge, LA and work with Habitat for Humanity and build houses for 6 weeks. We heard all but good things about this Habitat chapter and were super stoked to help out. Even though it would have been my 3rd time in Louisiana, I knew this project was going to be radical! The day of the White House, we get informed by Andrea that instead of going to Baton Rouge, Raven 3 has been called on disaster down in Texas and needed to deploy the next morning. When Wednesday hit of that week, we packed up our belongings and shoveled items in the van and headed for a 3 day hike to Dallas, TX. First place we stopped in was Bristol, VA on Wednesday night, then on Thursday we slept on a gym floor in Jackson, MS. which then reminded me of Michelle's experience of sleeping in locker rooms during Hurricane Katrina 3 years ago (that was a riot because it was a correctional facility for the Mississippi St. campus), and then finally we arrived to Dallas on Friday and placed air mattresses on the gym floor of a housing place called Lovers Lane United Methodist Church. We were catered heavily with free food and drinks and even dessert. Now don't be confused about the name of the church, it happened to be that the Lovers Lane name came from the name of the street the Methodist Church was on! Silly how our minds think :)! Anyways, at this point we had 4 other Perry Point teams with us staying in the gym at one time. As we were waiting out for the Hurricane to touchdown in the Texas area, we stayed put in Dallas and waited for further word from headquarters and our Point of Contact. Saturday and Sunday of this past week was used to relax and rest up for the up and coming disaster weeks or constant working. On Monday of this week our Raven 3 team got appointed to work at a Volunteer Center of North Dallas where we answered phones and called volunteers that wanted to help out with Hurricane Ike in anyway they could. Our job was to re-call back the people that didn't have all their information filled out from the e-mail application they submitted a couple days ago. The organization was very gracious and thankful that we were able to assist them the best we could during these times of sorrow. All 7 of us Raven 3 team manned the phones for the whole day on Monday. We were prepared to work with them temporalily until this Wednesday. When we arrived to work this morning we were continuing with the phone answering and computing into their systems computers when all the sudden Andrea informs us that we have been called down for disaster in Galveston, TX where the storm hit the hardest. We were told we were the only Americorps team heading down there to help as of now. More would be called in the future, but for now our Raven 3 team's job is running a call center for evacuees that were affected by the hurricane.
What the people in Galveston, TX is having us do is be on shifts of 3 and 4 to answer phone calls and assist people with problems and guiding them the right direction during this tough time. Myself, Joni, and Stan volunteered to work the graveyard shift answering calls from 8 PM-8 AM. Then the next shift, Zac, Meredith, Bill, and Andrea takes 8 AM- 8 PM. So we will be on the move basically like firefighters until further notice. It might be that we could be here the whole round helping the best we can. I have slowly gotten comfortable with answering phones and being patient with these enraged citizens of Galveston. I am trying to help as best as I can. Some are snotty which is understandable, but as a whole people are very grateful we are attempting to help them with their situations.
More to come throughout the next week or so. I will try to inform you all more about the experience of working with phones (since this is my first time with this kind of job) and all the positives and negatives with the evacuees.
Hope you enjoyed another long version of my blog! Like mentioned before, a lot was covered and I did my best to inform the best I could (even though it was hard to think back 2 months ago), but I managed even when it is 3 AM on a Wednesday morning :) I am keeping the head up and leaving a smile on my face in times like this...
Chianakas OUT!
First off, when Summer of Service program ended at the tail end of July this summer, we were allowed a 9-day summer break. I chose to head back home in Crystal Lake to visit the family and friends. While being home I got to sleep in my bed, work at my Dad's warehouse for some extra cash, mowed the yard, hung out with my next door neighbors (including seeing the new 2 month-old baby Charlie), and finally earning some ISP hours with my local park district. All in all, home was the same...nothing had changed other than it was nice to be home after an absence of 7 months. Good to catch up with high school friends and visit the neighbors.
I flew back after my 9-days were up and arrived in Perry Point ready to see what needed to be done before all the 3rd round teams came back. I knew that I wasn't going to be heading back to my Raven 3 team so it was an adventure to find out what actually the campus had in store for the CL's. We were told when we came back to our houses that 17 of us crew leaders were going to drive down to Delaware and work with the Delaware State Parks for about 8 days. That was such a wonderful experience. Since we were all close as crew leaders it made the work easier and more fun. They had placed us in 3 work groups that did various of tasks in those 6 work days. Not only was the work rewarding, but we also lived 5 minute walking distance to the beach. Work days consisted of beginning at 8:30 AM and ending at 3 PM...which gave us enough sunlight to walk down to the beach and soak up some rays. The different jobs they gave us to peform were: painting stables, working and cutting down shrubs, getting rid of invasive species, and did some clear trailing. Overall, it was a great time performing those tasks in Delaware. Our living conditions were in a camp house where guys slept in a room full of bunk beds and the girls slept in a seperate room on the other side of the building with bunk beds. We went shopping for groceries and cooked our own meals UNLESS it was lunch in which our sweet sponsor, Rob, bought all of us some sub sandwiches and sandwich wraps with chips. Very amazing person he was...Rob worked with Americorps before and is the program coordinator and volunteer coordinator in the Delaware that sets up people like Americorps NCCC and others that are wanting to help out in the immediate area. Some other cool things I did while I was there were: putting up a twine fence with PVC pipes along a selected area of the Delaware beach that protected any predators from attacking the endangered species, also I assisted with clearing high grasses in order to create a railroad track for a cannon at Camp Henlopen. In conclusion, the Delaware mini spike project was rewarding and basically like another vacation just in the fact we had easy work hours and a beach waiting for us after.
Next came, the decision to become a team leader for the up and coming 2009 Americorps NCCC campaign. I was convinced to sign up and apply to be one thanks to several outside sources. One being Summer of Service, working with those kids changed my mind from being on the fence 50/50 to being more like 70 percent YES and 30 percent NO. My experience with the 5 week program was wonderful and something I really enjoyed. My next encounter came from talking to other friends and Americorps peers that were applying for next year's excursion and they really told me how awesome it will be to be on "team green" and have a group of ten 18-24 year olds. So what I ended up doing on my 8 day fall break was spend time filling out the application for Team Leader Perry Point next session. I am kind of excited to see if I actually get the position because I think it will be a challenging, yet an amazing leadership chance to really booster up the resume. And it doesn't hurt to serve your country for another 10 months, I figure that I am young and capable to do so, so why not give back now...right?
Along with filling out the TL application, I got to hang out with some friends I really didn't hang out with during our CTI training which was different and awesome at the same time. I lived with one of my house mates and we tried to make the time spent productively. I teamed up with 4 other friends and traveled down to Baltimore, MD and worked at an ISP at a place called Moveable Feast. Basically what we did was clean the kitchens and storage rooms that made it more accessible for the cooks/chefs to prepare meals for clients that are suffering from illnesses/cancer and even females with breast cancer. We worked there for 8 hours and then later that night walked to where the Baltimore Orioles played and caught a baseball game there. We got 20 dollar seats and ended up sitting about 18 rows from the 1st base dugout...super fun even though the Orioles are super bad!! On thursday night of fall break I ended up going out with some friends still in Perry Point to celebrate our friend Katie's 21st birthday. It was very informal with a cake and one large gift in a bag which I picked up and bought from the Dollar General store. She loved all the little nick-nack gifts because all pertained to the type of personality she possesses. Later that weekend, I volunteered to drive a shuttle van to pick up fellow Americorps members at the Baltimore airport. I did that on Sunday.
I completely forgot to mention that my team leader, Andrea, appointed me as the team's ATL for 4th round AND when I went to the ATL meeting the next morning (before fall break) and found out that I was selected along with 45 other NCCC Perry Pointers to attend the White House south lawn and watch President Bush speak on volunteerism. When that day came along the ones that got selected were SUPER stoked and eager to potentially meet the President. Monday rolled around and all that were chosen to attend the White House gathered in the morning in the 15-passenger vans and headed to DC. We arrived to DC around noon and walked toward the mounds and mounds of people waiting in line to get into the south lawn. After waiting for about an hour in the hot, sweltering heat we realized this long line was not moving an inch, so we ended up walking in front of everyone and seeing if Americorps was on the list. After several Corps members attempted to check their name on the list, the national director of NCCC came by and attempted to get us all in. We later came to a conclusion that someone back in the Perry Point office completely messed up and didn't follow through with our trip and failed all of us. We all looked like fools not getting into the President's speech. Super bummed out. People were sympathetic when they walked out from the speech and said they had talked about Americorps...and that point we were irritated. BUT...instead of completely doing nothing, one of the White House representatives offered for all 50 of us to go and get the tour of the White House and take pictures. Now this wasn't the actual White House, it was more like a house that had different rooms dedicated to past-Presidents and where they hung out, ate, or dined in. I will be posting the pictures on facebook in the near future. When we got back from the busy day of basically nothing, it was funny to hear all the jeers and laughter from our buddies back in Perry Point after hearing about what had happened.
NOW...onto the important stuff...and that is 4th Round! WAH-WOOO!
We had our project brief before we left for fall break and we were orginally going to go to Baton Rouge, LA and work with Habitat for Humanity and build houses for 6 weeks. We heard all but good things about this Habitat chapter and were super stoked to help out. Even though it would have been my 3rd time in Louisiana, I knew this project was going to be radical! The day of the White House, we get informed by Andrea that instead of going to Baton Rouge, Raven 3 has been called on disaster down in Texas and needed to deploy the next morning. When Wednesday hit of that week, we packed up our belongings and shoveled items in the van and headed for a 3 day hike to Dallas, TX. First place we stopped in was Bristol, VA on Wednesday night, then on Thursday we slept on a gym floor in Jackson, MS. which then reminded me of Michelle's experience of sleeping in locker rooms during Hurricane Katrina 3 years ago (that was a riot because it was a correctional facility for the Mississippi St. campus), and then finally we arrived to Dallas on Friday and placed air mattresses on the gym floor of a housing place called Lovers Lane United Methodist Church. We were catered heavily with free food and drinks and even dessert. Now don't be confused about the name of the church, it happened to be that the Lovers Lane name came from the name of the street the Methodist Church was on! Silly how our minds think :)! Anyways, at this point we had 4 other Perry Point teams with us staying in the gym at one time. As we were waiting out for the Hurricane to touchdown in the Texas area, we stayed put in Dallas and waited for further word from headquarters and our Point of Contact. Saturday and Sunday of this past week was used to relax and rest up for the up and coming disaster weeks or constant working. On Monday of this week our Raven 3 team got appointed to work at a Volunteer Center of North Dallas where we answered phones and called volunteers that wanted to help out with Hurricane Ike in anyway they could. Our job was to re-call back the people that didn't have all their information filled out from the e-mail application they submitted a couple days ago. The organization was very gracious and thankful that we were able to assist them the best we could during these times of sorrow. All 7 of us Raven 3 team manned the phones for the whole day on Monday. We were prepared to work with them temporalily until this Wednesday. When we arrived to work this morning we were continuing with the phone answering and computing into their systems computers when all the sudden Andrea informs us that we have been called down for disaster in Galveston, TX where the storm hit the hardest. We were told we were the only Americorps team heading down there to help as of now. More would be called in the future, but for now our Raven 3 team's job is running a call center for evacuees that were affected by the hurricane.
What the people in Galveston, TX is having us do is be on shifts of 3 and 4 to answer phone calls and assist people with problems and guiding them the right direction during this tough time. Myself, Joni, and Stan volunteered to work the graveyard shift answering calls from 8 PM-8 AM. Then the next shift, Zac, Meredith, Bill, and Andrea takes 8 AM- 8 PM. So we will be on the move basically like firefighters until further notice. It might be that we could be here the whole round helping the best we can. I have slowly gotten comfortable with answering phones and being patient with these enraged citizens of Galveston. I am trying to help as best as I can. Some are snotty which is understandable, but as a whole people are very grateful we are attempting to help them with their situations.
More to come throughout the next week or so. I will try to inform you all more about the experience of working with phones (since this is my first time with this kind of job) and all the positives and negatives with the evacuees.
Hope you enjoyed another long version of my blog! Like mentioned before, a lot was covered and I did my best to inform the best I could (even though it was hard to think back 2 months ago), but I managed even when it is 3 AM on a Wednesday morning :) I am keeping the head up and leaving a smile on my face in times like this...
Chianakas OUT!
Monday, September 1, 2008
Summer of Service Experience (hold onto your seat)
WOAH! So much to catch you all up in this blog! So hang on for the long, bumpy, but yet amazing ride that will entail about the last 2 months of my Americorps NCCC experience. In this portion, I will be talking about as a whole how the Summer of Service program went (i.e. things we did in the program, how my Jazz 2 team was, projects, etc.). Later in upcoming blogs I will talk about my summer vacation and what I did over that and what some of us crew leaders did AFTER our summer break on a Delaware mini-spike.
First, where I left off from last update was the fact of how unfortunate the 4th of July fireworks were in downtown New Orleans. Pathetic would be the word to describe it. After the holiday and one last time to sleep-in before the 17 hour days began, we got mentally prepped for our stations for when the 14-17 year olds came the following day. I was the “floater” crew leader in which I was suppose to help guide the parents into their parking places and then pointed to what station to go next. Then they had me carry belongings upstairs for the kids and get them situated in their rooms. In their rooms, the kids had a big trash bag of uniform essentials such as: 4 t-shirts, 2 pairs of shorts, 1 pair of pants, a belt, couple pairs of socks, gloves, goggles, and really nice steel-toed boots. Other crew leaders were helping with IDs, signing in, answering any question from the parents, and assisting any of the higher up staff throughout the day.
The teams were revealed from the beginning. I was hoping they were going to do something creative with it or at least the 3 crew leaders per team figure out something fun to do with it. I know for when they introduced our Raven 3 team, they put candy in a bag with our names on it, and there was a clue on the bag, then the corps members had to gather up everyone with the same candy/clue and then together figure our what room their TL’s were sitting in. If we had in turn did that with the 14-17 year olds, I think they would have had a great time with it trying to think and it would have been a wonderful ice breaker to the program. Well, of course that didn’t happen…instead we said hello to our group of ten in the chapel of the Dillard University church. To introduce all the crew leaders, all 30 CL’s put on a community meeting where I was in the starting 5 basketball skit where we ran out in our retro-80’s uniforms with statistics and did a little “jig”! Too funny!!! Other skits that we put on were: Gary Flinger (parody of Jerry Springer), Stan’s Angels (parody of Charlie’s Angels), a dance-off between two teams of 5, and finally Hollywood moments where two crew leaders came out and acted out a scene from a famous movie. As a whole, the meeting went ‘ok’, not the best, we were kind of unprepared. Some of the 2-year kids got a kick out of it, but others were staring with blank looks. After the meeting we got acquainted with our team, JAZZ 2! Will, Bre and I introduced ourselves more in depth and then we went around the circle to talk about each other and played a little ice breaker game. After the game, we had them get up and play “human knot”. That was definitely a funny site to see J! What was unfortunate though, after we reported back into the chapel…we were informed that one of our participants, Stephen, was going to leave the program due to the face he was too old for the program. He had just turned 18 in May, but upper staff didn’t allow it. So, right away we were already down one person.
Soon after Stephen packed up his things and was picked up, Sean (our unit leader) informed the three of us that we were going to receive a new girl from the Blues Unit that wanted to be switched because she didn’t get along with one of the girls on her team from the get-go. Jazz 2 then had: Ardell, Derek, Demi, Robert, Davion, Ashira, Dijon, Dwayna, Brent, and Jasmaine! Four guys and six girls. Pretty much all teams were split to almost half guys and half girls which was good. I later noticed in the program there had been LOTS of family members, cousins, brothers, sisters, etc.
Day 1 was coming to an end and the beginning of SOS had truly started. For the next 3 days of that week consisted of different training for the kids and basically getting to know them at a personal level so that they felt comfortable. Most of these kids had worked at a job before, so the work came easy to them, others were basically there and going through the motions. All in all, our Jazz 2 team became tight-knit from the beginning was good to know. Three of them had been second timers. They all grew closer to each other trying to find out comparisons in music, sports, or maybe having mutual friends. The first day of our first project was set on that Friday. Our first project was mowing lawns for the nearby Dillard University neighborhoods. They wanted us to revitalize the area and make it a better place to live and cleaner. In some cases, some of the family members living in the houses were unable to afford to get their lawn trimmed, so they called upon us volunteers to take care of it. When Friday rolled around, we were all prepared to head out to the worksite when all the sudden we receive a call back from our sponsor telling us they have nothing for us to do today and that we would pick up with orientation and work the next Monday. WHAT!!! Unprofessional is what that sponsor was! We were all devastated we weren’t working today.
Luckily when we reported back to the upper staff, we ended up working that day and switching projects for the time being. We headed over to the organization called NENA in which we did things similar to the Dillard University project. We ended up mowing about 10 yards during the morning and then continued for a little bit in the afternoon. We had an awesome sponsor in Leroy who really enjoyed working with youth and rebuilding New Orleans. He wanted to see the kids work hard and realize the impact they are having on the surrounding neighborhoods. Very powerful and influential man.
So continuing on with the first project, we arrived at Dillard and worked with them the following five days the next week mowing, pulling weeds, planting flowers, and many more revitalizations. Later on in the week our kids became cranky and complaining a little because of the unbearing heat and humidity. It was playing a toll on all of us and it was uncomfortable. We fortunately had plenty of water and Gatorade and even at times the fellow neighbors brought out our kids fluids to replenish their bodies. We accomplished a lot in the five days and it later showed on our quantifiable at the end of the program. The Dillard University program had ample amount of tools and instruments to use to get the job done, BUT had a really unprofessional approach to things and handling volunteers. The three of us crew leaders had to report to Sean about these things so they could be changed for the next two teams coming in. It really must have worked because the teams that followed us, didn’t have as many problems as we did…which means word got through!
Moving on to our second work project. We then were assigned to work with the Animal Rescue of New Orleans for one week. We got to walk dogs, clean their cages, socialize and clean cat’s cages, and do whatever Robin wanted us to do. Roughly there was 50 dogs and over 160 cat/kittens. The crew leaders and I put together a little word search sheet for the team to figure out where we were going. All had to put their heads together. They had such a great time at ARNO working with the dogs and cats. Not even one complaint on cleaning the bathroom filled cages! WAH-WOO!
I must mention before continuing that the program was orchestrated further than just waking up and going to work everyday. Work days went from usually 8:30 AM-4 PM. But before the day began there was mandatory physical training for an hour. All the participants had to do PT for 5 days a week. We introduced many new sports that they never even heard of. For example: ultimate Frisbee, soccer, cabbage ball, softball, etc. The crew leaders even at night time when work was over (around 10:30 PM) relieved our stress by working out to Sweatin to the Oldies Richard Simmons style! When worked ended we ended up having team time and showering up for dinner. After dinner the kids had member development classes they signed up for. Classes were taught by us crew leaders and even sometimes the participants taught a thing or 2 to their fellow friends. Some of the classes consisted of: swimming, origami, dancing, games, yoga/karate, arts and crafts, and several others. The classes usually took place on every Wednesday and Thursday.
Going back to the worksites…after work about 2 time a week we would take the kids to either McDonald’s or take them to get sno-balls. Sometimes we would be generous and pay for them, but majority of the time it was coming out of their pockets. At this time, I was thinking about my Raven 3 team a lot. They were in Washington D.C. basically doing the same thing we were doing with our kids. They ran a summer camp for kids a little bit younger than the ones we had, but instead of doing volunteer work with them, Raven 3 got to take them on field trips, Great America theme park, swimming, sporting games, etc. I was UBER jealous! It was so difficult to keep in touch with them. Working 16-17 hour days really plays a toll on the body and keeping motivated. My work weeks were usually around 100 hours at the end, it was sickening but I knew from this experience I wouldn’t have to worry about graduating with not enough hours.
Our third project we got assigned was lowernine.org. This was the kid’s least favorite project. It was alright because it dealt with construction, but the site supervisors were never on site. I think it was not very good because the organization was fairly new and were experimenting with things. They were assigning tasks to our kids that should have been handled by older and more experienced volunteers. Jazz 2 did it happily. Luckily we were only there for 4 days. At the middle of the week, all projects were done and everyone reported in for graduation practice. Five Jazz teams and five Blues Unit teams gathered and us crew leaders looked at each other and were shocked that the program is nearly over. Graduation took place on that Friday and it was roughly about 1.5 hour. I got the chance to meet some of the participants families. Jam packed auditorium in which had several participants that participated in the graduation. One was the grand MC of the show, 3 gave SOS experience speeches, and 1 recited a poem he wrote dealing with SOS. Jules Hampton stole the show with how long and boring his opening speech was. He pretty much thanked everyone BUT the crew leaders…made us upset.
At the end of the hoopla, we took one final picture with everyone in the program and sadly said goodbye to the team/people you became close with for the past 4 weeks. I didn’t shed any tears but some of the girl crew leaders ended up sobbing a little. It was tough to say goodbye because some of them really had their heads screwed on correctly and had a direction in life after SOS ended. Majority of the ones I ended up talking to were talking about attending college, which was so great to hear.
In conclusion, it was such a rewarding SOS program for the 4 plus weeks we helped with it. The crew leaders became super close and now I have 29 solid friend I can rely on whenever. There was not one single person that had a problem with anyone on the crew leader team. Everyone gained several new leadership ideas that will be passed on to many people they encounter. I definitely know I surely did. I am glad and fortunate I was given the opportunity to be apart of SOS 2008 in New Orleans and be able to help and give input on how the program was and what things that needed to be changed and what ones should remain the same. Being a leader will increase my confidence to future careers dealing with workers an how to handle them in a professional manner. With a couple things that irked me from time to time (whether being upper staff undermining crew leader authority or lacking sleep from day to day), all in all the SOS program really changed me as an individual and as a leader. I am glad I got so much out of it that in turn I will take what I have learned and bring it back to my Raven 3 team J
Soon to come…Delaware St. Park mini spike with 17 crew leaders and the future to come with my 4th round project! Eeeek…Americorps is nearly over…2 months left!!!
Chianakas out!
First, where I left off from last update was the fact of how unfortunate the 4th of July fireworks were in downtown New Orleans. Pathetic would be the word to describe it. After the holiday and one last time to sleep-in before the 17 hour days began, we got mentally prepped for our stations for when the 14-17 year olds came the following day. I was the “floater” crew leader in which I was suppose to help guide the parents into their parking places and then pointed to what station to go next. Then they had me carry belongings upstairs for the kids and get them situated in their rooms. In their rooms, the kids had a big trash bag of uniform essentials such as: 4 t-shirts, 2 pairs of shorts, 1 pair of pants, a belt, couple pairs of socks, gloves, goggles, and really nice steel-toed boots. Other crew leaders were helping with IDs, signing in, answering any question from the parents, and assisting any of the higher up staff throughout the day.
The teams were revealed from the beginning. I was hoping they were going to do something creative with it or at least the 3 crew leaders per team figure out something fun to do with it. I know for when they introduced our Raven 3 team, they put candy in a bag with our names on it, and there was a clue on the bag, then the corps members had to gather up everyone with the same candy/clue and then together figure our what room their TL’s were sitting in. If we had in turn did that with the 14-17 year olds, I think they would have had a great time with it trying to think and it would have been a wonderful ice breaker to the program. Well, of course that didn’t happen…instead we said hello to our group of ten in the chapel of the Dillard University church. To introduce all the crew leaders, all 30 CL’s put on a community meeting where I was in the starting 5 basketball skit where we ran out in our retro-80’s uniforms with statistics and did a little “jig”! Too funny!!! Other skits that we put on were: Gary Flinger (parody of Jerry Springer), Stan’s Angels (parody of Charlie’s Angels), a dance-off between two teams of 5, and finally Hollywood moments where two crew leaders came out and acted out a scene from a famous movie. As a whole, the meeting went ‘ok’, not the best, we were kind of unprepared. Some of the 2-year kids got a kick out of it, but others were staring with blank looks. After the meeting we got acquainted with our team, JAZZ 2! Will, Bre and I introduced ourselves more in depth and then we went around the circle to talk about each other and played a little ice breaker game. After the game, we had them get up and play “human knot”. That was definitely a funny site to see J! What was unfortunate though, after we reported back into the chapel…we were informed that one of our participants, Stephen, was going to leave the program due to the face he was too old for the program. He had just turned 18 in May, but upper staff didn’t allow it. So, right away we were already down one person.
Soon after Stephen packed up his things and was picked up, Sean (our unit leader) informed the three of us that we were going to receive a new girl from the Blues Unit that wanted to be switched because she didn’t get along with one of the girls on her team from the get-go. Jazz 2 then had: Ardell, Derek, Demi, Robert, Davion, Ashira, Dijon, Dwayna, Brent, and Jasmaine! Four guys and six girls. Pretty much all teams were split to almost half guys and half girls which was good. I later noticed in the program there had been LOTS of family members, cousins, brothers, sisters, etc.
Day 1 was coming to an end and the beginning of SOS had truly started. For the next 3 days of that week consisted of different training for the kids and basically getting to know them at a personal level so that they felt comfortable. Most of these kids had worked at a job before, so the work came easy to them, others were basically there and going through the motions. All in all, our Jazz 2 team became tight-knit from the beginning was good to know. Three of them had been second timers. They all grew closer to each other trying to find out comparisons in music, sports, or maybe having mutual friends. The first day of our first project was set on that Friday. Our first project was mowing lawns for the nearby Dillard University neighborhoods. They wanted us to revitalize the area and make it a better place to live and cleaner. In some cases, some of the family members living in the houses were unable to afford to get their lawn trimmed, so they called upon us volunteers to take care of it. When Friday rolled around, we were all prepared to head out to the worksite when all the sudden we receive a call back from our sponsor telling us they have nothing for us to do today and that we would pick up with orientation and work the next Monday. WHAT!!! Unprofessional is what that sponsor was! We were all devastated we weren’t working today.
Luckily when we reported back to the upper staff, we ended up working that day and switching projects for the time being. We headed over to the organization called NENA in which we did things similar to the Dillard University project. We ended up mowing about 10 yards during the morning and then continued for a little bit in the afternoon. We had an awesome sponsor in Leroy who really enjoyed working with youth and rebuilding New Orleans. He wanted to see the kids work hard and realize the impact they are having on the surrounding neighborhoods. Very powerful and influential man.
So continuing on with the first project, we arrived at Dillard and worked with them the following five days the next week mowing, pulling weeds, planting flowers, and many more revitalizations. Later on in the week our kids became cranky and complaining a little because of the unbearing heat and humidity. It was playing a toll on all of us and it was uncomfortable. We fortunately had plenty of water and Gatorade and even at times the fellow neighbors brought out our kids fluids to replenish their bodies. We accomplished a lot in the five days and it later showed on our quantifiable at the end of the program. The Dillard University program had ample amount of tools and instruments to use to get the job done, BUT had a really unprofessional approach to things and handling volunteers. The three of us crew leaders had to report to Sean about these things so they could be changed for the next two teams coming in. It really must have worked because the teams that followed us, didn’t have as many problems as we did…which means word got through!
Moving on to our second work project. We then were assigned to work with the Animal Rescue of New Orleans for one week. We got to walk dogs, clean their cages, socialize and clean cat’s cages, and do whatever Robin wanted us to do. Roughly there was 50 dogs and over 160 cat/kittens. The crew leaders and I put together a little word search sheet for the team to figure out where we were going. All had to put their heads together. They had such a great time at ARNO working with the dogs and cats. Not even one complaint on cleaning the bathroom filled cages! WAH-WOO!
I must mention before continuing that the program was orchestrated further than just waking up and going to work everyday. Work days went from usually 8:30 AM-4 PM. But before the day began there was mandatory physical training for an hour. All the participants had to do PT for 5 days a week. We introduced many new sports that they never even heard of. For example: ultimate Frisbee, soccer, cabbage ball, softball, etc. The crew leaders even at night time when work was over (around 10:30 PM) relieved our stress by working out to Sweatin to the Oldies Richard Simmons style! When worked ended we ended up having team time and showering up for dinner. After dinner the kids had member development classes they signed up for. Classes were taught by us crew leaders and even sometimes the participants taught a thing or 2 to their fellow friends. Some of the classes consisted of: swimming, origami, dancing, games, yoga/karate, arts and crafts, and several others. The classes usually took place on every Wednesday and Thursday.
Going back to the worksites…after work about 2 time a week we would take the kids to either McDonald’s or take them to get sno-balls. Sometimes we would be generous and pay for them, but majority of the time it was coming out of their pockets. At this time, I was thinking about my Raven 3 team a lot. They were in Washington D.C. basically doing the same thing we were doing with our kids. They ran a summer camp for kids a little bit younger than the ones we had, but instead of doing volunteer work with them, Raven 3 got to take them on field trips, Great America theme park, swimming, sporting games, etc. I was UBER jealous! It was so difficult to keep in touch with them. Working 16-17 hour days really plays a toll on the body and keeping motivated. My work weeks were usually around 100 hours at the end, it was sickening but I knew from this experience I wouldn’t have to worry about graduating with not enough hours.
Our third project we got assigned was lowernine.org. This was the kid’s least favorite project. It was alright because it dealt with construction, but the site supervisors were never on site. I think it was not very good because the organization was fairly new and were experimenting with things. They were assigning tasks to our kids that should have been handled by older and more experienced volunteers. Jazz 2 did it happily. Luckily we were only there for 4 days. At the middle of the week, all projects were done and everyone reported in for graduation practice. Five Jazz teams and five Blues Unit teams gathered and us crew leaders looked at each other and were shocked that the program is nearly over. Graduation took place on that Friday and it was roughly about 1.5 hour. I got the chance to meet some of the participants families. Jam packed auditorium in which had several participants that participated in the graduation. One was the grand MC of the show, 3 gave SOS experience speeches, and 1 recited a poem he wrote dealing with SOS. Jules Hampton stole the show with how long and boring his opening speech was. He pretty much thanked everyone BUT the crew leaders…made us upset.
At the end of the hoopla, we took one final picture with everyone in the program and sadly said goodbye to the team/people you became close with for the past 4 weeks. I didn’t shed any tears but some of the girl crew leaders ended up sobbing a little. It was tough to say goodbye because some of them really had their heads screwed on correctly and had a direction in life after SOS ended. Majority of the ones I ended up talking to were talking about attending college, which was so great to hear.
In conclusion, it was such a rewarding SOS program for the 4 plus weeks we helped with it. The crew leaders became super close and now I have 29 solid friend I can rely on whenever. There was not one single person that had a problem with anyone on the crew leader team. Everyone gained several new leadership ideas that will be passed on to many people they encounter. I definitely know I surely did. I am glad and fortunate I was given the opportunity to be apart of SOS 2008 in New Orleans and be able to help and give input on how the program was and what things that needed to be changed and what ones should remain the same. Being a leader will increase my confidence to future careers dealing with workers an how to handle them in a professional manner. With a couple things that irked me from time to time (whether being upper staff undermining crew leader authority or lacking sleep from day to day), all in all the SOS program really changed me as an individual and as a leader. I am glad I got so much out of it that in turn I will take what I have learned and bring it back to my Raven 3 team J
Soon to come…Delaware St. Park mini spike with 17 crew leaders and the future to come with my 4th round project! Eeeek…Americorps is nearly over…2 months left!!!
Chianakas out!
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