Something Good

We've been here for nearly two weeks now. Week 1 was training, and this week was my first week as a site supervisor. I am exhausted and covered in dry wall dust and I can't wait to take a shower. That's the gist of it, so here goes:

We had a great orientation and training last week. Meeting the St. Bernard Staff (many of whom are NCCC alumni) was helpful in getting to know the project. After some questions and activities we received our positions, respectively, as site supervisors, specialists, warehouse assistants, and starters (also known as mold remediators).

It turns out, at least for this project, our team will be separated for our separate jobs. I will be a site supervisor for the next month and a half. I'm extremely excited but also fairly anxious about teaching others how to install insulation, dry-wall, mudding, flooring, etc.

This week was my first week as a supervisor. There were two of us supervising 15 volunteers from a university in Maryland. After just a week of training, you can imagine how stressful it must have been, and it was. But the week has come to an end and I think it is safe to say that my teammate and I, along with our volunteers have accomplished so much this week.

The week started out quickly, as the volunteers arrived via bus to our site as we were still preparing for their arrival. We started our orientation with them, introduced ourselves as their site supervisors for the week, and went over expectations and goals. Fortunately (depending on your perspective), for these folks, Eileen and I are fluent in energizers and ice breaker games, so we jumped into the week on an adrenalized note. We taught them insulation first, and they were off. By the end of Day 2, most of the house insulation was complete, and we moved onto dry-wall. This is where things got a bit tricky, and frustrations in having to re-do some of the ceiling led to a stressful day for all. Luckily, we moved right on the next day and got back into the groove of things.

I think the two of us were lucky to have such a great group for our first week of supervising. There is nothing better than working with motivated students who are able to maintain such a positive attitude. We found ourselves having to make our volunteers break for lunch because they wanted to keep working. :)

Throughout the week, the homeowner stopped by to see how his house was. One of the best, if not the best, moments of the week happened today, when he stopped by with King Cake and shared some thanks. Having had his home destroyed by the flooding was of course devastating to his family, and he shared gratitude for being able to help his family now. It really made this whole week an incredible one for our volunteers and us, and seeing smiles and tears really proved to me that something happened this week, something good that will continue to happen week after week, volunteer after volunteer, while I'm here.

CNN with Anderson Cooper

So this past week we had a guest in St. Bernard, Anderson Cooper, who was reporting our project live on CNN. So of course, we made our way over to the house where the clip was being filmed. We grabbed our signage and spread the NCCC glory and joined in on the celebration of 200 houses having been completed by the St. Bernard Project. Congratulations SBP!

Check out the story at cnn.com!

Tejas

This is an entry from last weekend - I'm including it now that I have internet-access. Sweet, sweet, internet access:

This weekend was a bit of a change in plans. There are several teams in the Gulf Coast, and four teams, including ours, were needed to retrieve some support vehicles for NCCC headquarters. About 2-4 Corps members from each of the four teams and their TL's traveled together after meeting here at Camp Hope. We left midday Friday, stayed in Lake Charles, LA for the night, left in the morning to Austin Texas, where we arrived around early afternoon, and finally left this morning back to base camp in St. Bernard.

Friday night in Lake Charles we ended up staying at a girl scout camp, where a team from Wolf Unit was staying for their project. It was the first chilly night we'd had all week so we bundled up in our sleeping bags and cot mattresses in the main living area as soon as we got there. A projector was set up in the middle of the room and a sheet was hung as a screen. I fell asleep while watching Garden State... a movie I've yet to see fully without falling asleep. Someday...

Rise and shine, or lack thereof, and we were off in the cold rain for another day of driving. When we arrived at Austin at a Red Roof Inn we got our rooms, bought a couple of wi-fi internet cards and savored in the first clear signal of wireless internet in almost two weeks. Unfortunately, my inbox is still backed up, so I'll have to figure out how to get to it this upcoming week. Anyway, meanwhile, a few others left to retrieve the nearby support vehicles.

That night we traveled to downtown Austin for a bit, grabbed some food, searched for a recommended specialty cupcake place (only to find it closed), and finally to the store for a package of cupcakes, the next best thing. Had a solid night of sleep and we were off on our way back to St. Bernard via Lake Charles.

And now begins my first week working as a site supervisor to a college alternative spring break students. From what I hear, I will be supervising a Hillel group, and teaching them how to put up dry wall and mudding. Good thing I've done this for years... and by that I couldn't be more kidding. I just learned how to do this less than 7 days ago. This should be interesting. :-)

Camp Hope

More on Camp Hope. The camp was once a Middle School, so you can imagine what it generally would look like. There are two floors, the first floor consisting of the front office, two sets of bathrooms, a lounge, and all of the rooms where volunteers are staying (which were once classrooms). On the second floor are some more rooms, bathrooms, as well as the showers. There are also lockers which we are free to use if we've got locks. Outside of the main building across the wide walkway/courtyard-esk area is the dining hall which is its own building, and next to that is the laundry room.

Our team is living and sleeping in one of the rooms on the first floor. We're staying with one other Perry Point team, another team from our unit: Badger 5. They are here for the next two months working for Habitat for Humanity. Together we have appropriately named ourselves Badger 11. I suggested Badger 5.5 as an average to represent us more accurately, but the more and more I see it the more is sounds like an operating system or software.

Anyway, we are staying in the room with a couple of other NCCC teams from the Fall Sacramento campus, who have been here for a month already. They're currently on their second round and this their third project.



Overall, I'd say there are about 40 people in this room, sleeping in bunk cots. Fortunately I sleep fairly easily. The hardest part for me has been getting off an on my top bunk night and morning, as I have to climb on four different cots on either side of me to get up there, especially when my neighbors are sleeping.

This has all just proven to me how important it is to pack lightly. We've all brought our red bag, a sleeping bag, and a smaller bag for the two months, and even that almost seems like too much now that I'm here.

Breakfast and dinner is served at the camp in shifts, and the volunteers are the ones who set-up, clean-up, and help serve. All or most of the food is donated. For lunch, since we're on site, we pack it up in the morning.

So that's Camp Hope. But that's not where I am right now. More on that later.

Camp Hope and the St. Bernard Project

http://www.stbernardproject.org

Visit this web site for all of the information on the St. Bernard Project. This is what we are a part of the for the next two months.

I'm here in St. Bernard's Parish, which is 15 miles outside of New Orleans. We're finishing up week 1.

The scoop on where the Badgers are staying: We're staying here at Camp Hope for the next two months. It is the largest volunteer base camp in the country, with up to 3000 people staying here at a time, and it is run by Habitat for Humanity. Before I go, just to clarify, we are NOT working for Habitat for Humanity. We are working for a specific project known as the St. Bernard Project, a project started in 2006 in response to Katrina. The goal of the project is to build and sell homes to homeowners of the area who have had their homes destroyed at no interest.

To give you an idea of the scope of damage we're responding to:

- 27000 homes were affected. All in all, that is 100% of the homes in St. Bernard that were damaged.
- 68,000 residents lived here before the storms.
- The current population is about 25,000 and growing.

The goal of the project is to keep this number growing and bring more and more home each week. Our job as Corps members will be to serve as site supervisors, starters, warehouse workers, and, of course, working on the construction. I've gotten my position which I'll tell more about later. This week was filled with training. Next week we really get going.

...Heading to Austin, Texas this weekend and leaving midday today, and we're off to our worksite in two minutes, so I'll have to update this more later. I apologize for the lack of details, but I'll make up for it.

Travel to New Orleans - Day 2

Got up for continental breakfast and hit the road for the final stretch. It was a bit of a longer day -- I think our whole team was feeling the fatigue of car riding, so it was much quieter. I took the opportunity to get going on our team theme song. Yes, as of mid-day Badger 6 had our own lyrics to "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen. I may or may not upload the video... But either, I've ensured everyone that we'll be memorizing this by the end of the next month and hopefully sooner, if not the end of the round. Everyone's pretty excited about it. We've even had some talks about choreography.

Anyway, our drive concluded at Camp Hope in St. Bernard. We are here with one other team: Badger 5, who is working on a project for Habitat for Humanity. We've come to call ourselves Badger 11 accordingly while both of our teams stay here at Camp Hope for the next two months

More on the camp shortly. But alas, we are here. Don't stop us now!

Travel to New Orleans - Day 1

I'm at a Days Inn in Knoxville, Tennessee. We traveled about 9 hours today and we're here for the night.

Lots of house cleaning, final packing and loading into the van, and goodbyes happened at the Point this morning, and we were off around 8:30am. The 10 of us successfully made it through the day with a packed van, an abundance of playlists, snacks and naps, and arrived here around 7ish. I've eaten more junk today than I probably have in the past month, and that's how it goes for me when I travel. Hmmm, oh well.




Anyway, the Badger 6 team certainly enjoyed ourselves today. We're off in the morning for the final leg of the drive!

Induction

Well, we're officially off on our journey for the year. Yesterday, all 136 of us were inducted at the ceremony held nearby in Perryville at Minker Hall. Very similar to a graduation ceremony, we lined up in order of team and unit, proceeded into the hall and took our seats. We had some very special guests -- three CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) alumni. FYI - The CCC was founded in the 30's by Roosevelt as a peace-time kind of army, working on the conservation of the land in the country. Since it has evolved into NCCC today, it was nice to be able to have some of the original members of the CCC there at the ceremony.


It was nice to dress in our polos and black khakis. I know that I've personally been waiting a while to wear them, looking forward to being snazzy and professional (as you can see on the men of Badger 6 above). These are the uniforms we primarily save for bigger occasions, ceremonies, recruitment events, and of course, graduation at the end of the year. As a Corps Ambassador Representative (CAP - my team specialty role), I'll be making use of it a lot for events. I'll more about that when our first event comes along.

All in all, we had some motivating speeches and a few good Badger cheers to show off to the crowd, had some cake and punch, and made our way back to the village. Now time to fulfill our commitment to getting things done as we're on our way to our first projects. Bye bye Perry Point -- I'll see you in two months.