Week 9 (September 28 - October 4)

Monday my team and I drove around town inspecting each of the numbers that we painted on the curbs. We checked each number to make sure that it matched the house as well as the quality of the paint job. After work my team and I went to the local YMCA to participate in an ISP. We worked with the YMCA Pee Wee football team. The boys were so tiny and adorable in their football jerseys! The different teams even had cheerleaders! For the most part I directed traffic in and out of the small parking lot. Part way through the second game I switched time and managed the time clock for the remainder of the game. For a girl that barely knows anything about football, I did a pretty good job!!

Tuesday morning a few of my teammates and I traveled to Jackson, Mississippi for a Corps Ambassador Program. We spent the morning educating non profit organizations of the Jackson area about Americorps NCCC. It was nice to be included in an activity outside of volunteer projects. Later on in the day my team leader informed our team that the second project that was included in our round one was cancelled because of the lack of internet on our campus. For the final three weeks of our round one were supposed to be working with a company that has a database for disabled individuals. We were going to help them update their listings of activities as well as the individuals and their personal needs that they assist in the state of Mississippi. At this point we will be stay in Vicksburg and try and few a new project to work on, travel to Kentucky to help with disaster relief from the recent August flash flooding, or travel to Georgia to help with disaster relief from their recent flash flooding. Talk about flexibility! I’d say that this is a perfect example of how flexible one must be while being a part of AmeriCorps. Here I thought I’d be enjoying three more weeks serving in Vicksburg when in actuality I may be in Kentucky or Georgia by the end of the week. Only time will tell!

Wednesday as a team we finished our last street of houses. We seemed to somehow save the highest traffic area for last! Nonetheless we are officially finished with painting curbs! Success! I have a feeling though that it may take me awhile to break the habit of looking at every curve that we drive by wondering if it is a large enough curb to paint, and looking at the house to see if it has a legible number. After work my team and I were informed by our team leader that we will be leaving for Louisville, Kentucky early Friday morning to assist with disaster relief for the remaining three weeks of the round. We will be mucking and gutting houses daily while staying at a school that has been turned into a Salvation Army building. Our first week we will be training under a volunteer group called CAP (Christian Appalachian Project). During our three weeks breakfast and dinner will kindly be provided by Salvation Army’s Center of Hope. Supposedly the Center of Hope feeds local volunteers and is ran by a four star chef! This doesn’t sound like disaster relief settings at all! Normally teams that go on disaster relief have a hard time finding places to stay and eat. Goodness we got lucky!! I am definitely beyond excited to travel to Kentucky to partake in a new volunteer project, but at the same time I am sad to leave a few people that I’ve grown close to since the round started. I definitely didn’t realize how hard it would be to say goodbye to people! Saying goodbye is probably one of the hardest things for me to do, and lucky me…I get to say goodbye often!! L

Thursday being our last day in Vicksburg we spent the morning watching a “Controlled Fire” done by the Vicksburg Fire Department. A few times a year they perform controlled fires in order to make sure that their firefighters stay up to par with their training. Never saw a fire take place in person and I have to say that it was pretty mesmerizing! It broke my heart though because the family that lived in the house was present to see the house burn down L Fun fact about the fire - the very center of the fire reaches 1,000 degrees! Where we were standing reached 125 degrees. I felt like I was in a sauna!! Afterwards I spent the rest of the day attempting to pack my life into a medium size bag and a small backpack. Needless to say I’m leaving ¾ of the things I brought with me behind. Talk about turning into an extremely low maintenance kind of a girl! Once I finished packing, a few of us went out to the bar for one last time before leaving for KY. It coincidentally happened to also be karaoke night which clearly made for an entertaining night. I didn’t realize how much I missed singing karaoke until I sang “I Don’t Know Why” by Norah Jones. Karaoke with great friends was definitely the perfect way to end my time in Vicksburg, MS.

Friday bright and early at 7am my team and I loaded the 15 passenger van and headed north to Louisville, Kentucky. I tried so hard throughout the whole trip to get comfortable, but I could never find the right spot! I even planned ahead and bought a neck pillow!! Thankfully though the time in the van was split up a bit because I had to drive a two hour shift in the middle of the day. By about 9pm (which ended up being 10pm) we finally arrived in Louisville! Our great sponsor, Kelly, recommended that we get a bite to eat at a pizza place called Spinelli’s. Spinelli’s is the only place local that serves New York style pizza. The pizza was awesome and the college town atmosphere made for a great welcoming to Louisville. After dinner we moved into the school that we will be staying in for the three weeks. We have a common room, and three separate classrooms for our personal use. Girls are sleeping in one room, boys are sleeping in another room, and the third room will be used to house our uniforms. We will be using old locker room showers to shower in and thankfully we brought cots from campus to sleep on. This should definitely be an experience!

Saturday was supposed to be our day off but our sponsor informed us that we would be having orientation with the CAP group. Early afternoon my team and I drove over to the church where the CAP is being housed for the week to introduce ourselves are partake in an orientation session. CAP is a group that focuses their volunteer work in northern Kentucky. A group of them came down in early August to volunteer with the initial flood relief and then decided to return to Louisville for another week when they got word that AmeriCorps was coming to town. After the brief orientation we broke up into groups and traveled to different homes to begin our disaster relief work. I was paired up with a guy by the name of Wes. Wes lives in Kentucky with his wife and two kids and volunteers his time to help because he is good friends with the woman who runs the disaster relief program for CAP. He was a very nice guy and easy to joke around and get along with. The home we went to was owned by an older widowed lady who had suffered from a stroke. The only damage she had from the flood was tree damage so we spent the afternoon cleaning up broken limbs that were on her property. After our first day of work, my team and I headed to the Center of Hope for our first dinner. As we walked down the road towards the building we noticed that the Center of Hope was actually a homeless shelter and that we would be eating with homeless people, not volunteers. Sure enough, we all were greeted by shocked homeless people. I would be shocked too if I saw 11 well groomed and dressed people walk into a homeless shelter looking for a warm meal. We also found out that the four star chef that we were expecting teaches homeless people how to cook. In return, the homeless people are the individuals that cook and serve the meal. Needless to say my team and I were expecting a totally different atmosphere and meal.

Sunday was another fun filled day working with Wes and a few of my teammates. By the end of the day Wes gave me the nickname “Killer” because I worked hard all day long - to the point that Wes had to yell at me to take water breaks.