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!
