Week 5 (August 31 - September 6)

Monday began with the official ribbon cutting ceremony for our campus. The Chamber of Commerce of the town was generous and donated bicycles to our campus so that we can travel around town on our own. The hospitality from the different departments in town is simply amazing. During the afternoon my team and another River team traveled to Redwood Baptist Church and dug trenches for an outdoor pavilion that they want to install for different activities involving the youth. Most of the day my assigned task was raking the top of the dirt in order to properly level the ground. While raking I felt as if I was playing in a large zen garden. On a side note, I’ve noticed that with every project I work on I try and find something small to smile about. The zen garden idea really helped me focus and stay lighthearted throughout the project. While working the sponsors unexpectedly provided us with a really nice lunch. After our project we had a pizza party and enjoyed one of the last nights on campus with everyone.

Tuesday was the day of our induction. I am now an official member of AmeriCorps. Goodness! Starting tomorrow my team and I will be “getting things done” by beginning our project in downtown Vicksburg. After induction my team decided to have dinner at the Biscuit Company in downtown Vicksburg. It’s always a nice change in the routine to go out to dinner. By this point the dynamic of the team is really coming along nicely. I am excited to hopefully get to know each one of my teammates on a deeper level during this first round. It should be possible considering each day we will be split into groups of two.

Wednesday the majority of the teams left for their first round projects - definitely made for a sad start to the day. I will definitely miss both Salina and Zach a lot because I spent every day of the past few weeks with them. We’ve definitely created a great friendship thus far and I’m excited to see how it will progress throughout the first round of projects. My team however is one of the few teams that will be staying on campus. I am anxious to get to know people that are on the other teams staying with us on a closer level. I’m glad that they will be on campus - without them it would be a quiet and eerie two months!

After a few last minute good byes, my team and I headed downtown to the fire department that is sponsoring our project. Each morning we will report to the station and receive our assigned neighborhood for the day. Along with the map of the neighborhood, our team will also be assigned a private that will drive around during the day to make sure that we have enough supplies and water. After receiving our supplies we headed to our first neighborhood. In a nutshell, my team and I have a very simple project. We are split up into white paint and spray paint groups. The white paint groups go around and paint a white rectangle on the curb. Once the white paint is dry, the spray paint groups stencil the black numbers onto the curb. The sponsor who planned the program estimated that we would complete 17 and a half houses a day. Our first neighborhood was supposed to take us one whole week and we finished it in one single day. Talk about a fast and efficient team!! Although we have a simple project I have a feeling we will still be worn out by the end of the day from all the walking and bending and squatting that we will be doing. Once we got back to the campus at the end of the day we had to help move beds from the dorms we all have been living in over to the new dorm that the Delta teams will be staying in. Talk about one long day!! I also found out that I won’t be moving out of my room for the first round. I will stay in my room and have my room to myself. I also plan on enjoying every minute of the personal time that I get this round because I imagine that I will be stuck in one room with all the girls on my team the remaining three rounds.

Thursday - day two of our lovely project! Today we were assigned the largest neighborhood of our project. The neighborhood was planned to take 2 weeks to complete and my team and I happened to finish 90% of it in one day. At the rate we are going we are averaging one neighborhood a day! My team and I are beginning to get into a daily routine. Each day we work from 8:30-5 and then we come home and either have PT or get ready for dinner. We have been split up in teams of two to cook dinner each night. Those who can cook are paired with those who have less experience with cooking. I am anxious to see what kind of creative meals we will be enjoying because I have a lot of experienced cooks on my team. I have also already explained to my team that what I lack in cooking skills, I make up in baking skills. Hopefully at one point or another I can wow them with my delicious muffins and cookies that I know how to make.

Friday - day three of our project. By the end of the day we had completed our initial goal created by the sponsor of 608 houses. I wish that I would have been a fly on the wall when the sponsor was organizing our project. Did he imagine us getting on our hands and knees and coloring each white rectangle with white crayons? The proposed goal may have been way off, but in all actuality I‘m happy to have had a goal that was easy to obtain rather than a goal that could not be feasibly reached in 5 weeks. Once we got back from work my team and I evaluated our work performance and we came up with a new goal of painting 4,000 houses in 5 weeks. We believe that the new goal can be obtained because we seem to be averaging 225 houses a day.

Saturday and Sunday were spent working on an ISP project. The project took place at an organization called Jacob’s Ladder. Jacob’s Ladder is an organization that works with mentally disabled adolescents ranging from elementary age to high school. The students are educated by participating in hands on experiences as well as regular class time. A hands on experience for them would be practicing their math skills while grocery shopping. Many of the students also have part time jobs. The woman who ran the program opened the school back in 2001. With the economical problems she had been facing she told us that she is beyond thankful that her program was still running and successful. We volunteered to paint the outside of her building. The woman was very grateful that we were painting her building because without us she would not have had the funds to hire people. The house had not been painted for 9 years. We spent most of Saturday scraping the old paint off the house. Painters definitely don’t have an easy job! Even after two full days of work, we were not able to finish the house. Hopefully in the near future we will be able to go back and finish painting the sides of the house and the trim.