Week 10 (October 5 - October 11)

Monday was spent morning working with Wes sanitizing homes. After lunch, we headed to a home that the rest of my team was working on and helped them demolish the walls and tile in the basement. After work, a few of us went out to Buffalo Wild Wings for a beer and wings while we watched a Packers game. Louisville has a great nightlife! Definitely puts “tiny one bar Vicksburg” to shame!

Tuesday was spent all day at the home of Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Smith was your definition of a hoarder. Her whole home was covered top to bottom with things. There was no where to sit or stand in her home. You literally had to hop over things to get from one end of the house to the other. In the beginning of the day Mrs. Smith was beside herself and did not want to get rid of anything in her basement. We tried to tell her why we needed to remove her walls and moldy items but she didn’t want to remove anything. It was very hard for to come to terms with strangers in her home trying to help her rid her home of mold. Thankfully with enough talking, I experienced Mrs. Smith transition from a victim of the storm into a survivor. By the end of the day we managed to remove everything in her basement that had mold on it and sanitize everything that was salvageable. By the end of the day she was welcoming the idea of moving on in her life and even thanked us by making us homemade chili and two delicious desserts! Before departing, Mrs. Smith graced us with her poetry and read us a poem about God that she had written. By the end of the day she had opened not only her home to us but also her grateful heart.

Wednesday Wes put me in charge of a home! What we thought was going to be a simple sanitation project turned into a medium sized project. My team and I had to demolish a makeshift recording studio, walls in a small bedroom, and sanitize everything in the basement that the homeowner wanted to keep. Due to some complications on another job Wes and a CAP volunteer had to leave the site before lunch. Even with only three of us left, we were able to complete the job! Wes returned at the end of the day surprising us with cake and coffee and was surprised to see that we were able to complete the job with only three people. What can I say, I have great skills! :D

Thursday I spent the day sanitizing a homeowner’s basement. I don’t think I’ll ever understand why people hold on to such random stuff! I do remind myself though that many items have sentimental value that we as volunteers are not aware of. Why though, would someone keep a walker that is missing a leg, or random scraps or other broken items? If they are in your basement collecting dust, are you really planning on using them? After work my team and I went to the church where the CAP volunteers are being housed and had dinner with them. A few of the members of the church supplied the meal for the volunteers. The overflow of support and hospitality from the community is wonderful! It’s truly a humbling feeling to be appreciated as much as we are!

Friday I had the opportunity to work for the first time with the Metro United Way group of volunteers. Metro United Way (MUW) will be the organization that we will be working with daily start Monday when CAP heads back to Northern Kentucky. The group is made up of a handful of local adults that came together right after the flood to clean up the homes. They are definitely a group of hardworking and passionate individuals! A guy by the name of Mike runs the crew. He is originally from New York and actually has a daughter that is going to school near Lake Winnipesauke in New Hampshire. Talk about a small world! All throughout the day he attempted to teach us all how to say “forget about it” in his lovely New York accent. By the end of the day we had cleared and sanitized three homes! Talk about efficiency!

Saturday was our last day working with the CAP group. I definitely learned a lot working with them and was happy to have met such wonderful and warm hearted people! Along with the CAP volunteers, we also worked side by side with a large group of Mormons. I ended up being the only AmeriCorps volunteer in my group therefore allowing me to pretty much lead the whole group of adult Mormons. I was taken aback by the interest they showed in me and my reasons for joining AmeriCorps. They definitely put me at ease and made me feel comfortable leading such a large group! After work, Becca and I headed back to our home earlier then the rest of our group from dinner in hopes to be the first to take warm showers. To our surprise, the shower ceiling collapsed while we were working. Chicken Little knew what she was talking about when she said the sky was falling! Thankfully no one was hurt when the ceiling fell and according to our housing sponsor there are other showers that we can use. After the shower episode, Becca and I took a trip to the Highlands area of Louisville and went to a coffee shop called Heine Brother’s Coffee Shop. Highlands is definitely a cute area of Louisville and probably the part of town that I could see myself living in.

Sunday - Sunday was our first official day off! Since my team and I only have a few days off while we are in Kentucky we decided to try and pack everything worth seeing into each day off. Today we started the day out by going to a cute café for breakfast. Afterwards, we decided to partake in a free tour of Churchill Downs and the Speed Art Museum. For lunch we decided to attend Louisville’s Chili Cook Off contest. Any restaurant, family or group can partake in the contest. My goodness did we end up tasting a lot of chili! There were 80 contributors and I must have tried at least a third of the chili that was provided by the contributors. Once we had our fill of chili we traveled to Seneca Park which was a large and local park that had an assortment of activities to partake in. a golf course to large a local and large park to hang out for a bit. After the park we headed back to campus and relaxed for a bit before deciding on dinner plans. During the down time we were lucky enough to find wireless internet on the third floor of the building. Goodness were we excited! It was as if Christmas had came early! Once the excitement wore off, Becca, Tarah and I decided to go to Hard Rock Café for dinner. The waitress was awesome, the ambience was nice but the over priced food was not all that great. That will probably be the one and only time that I go to a Hard Rock Café. The experience was nice, but probably only needed one time in my life!