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Published: November 21st 2010
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Each roll has over ten miles
of paper on it. They are used for making tablets. (Shocco Springs Conference Center)
We’re serving Talladega, Alabama this month, at Shocco Springs Baptist Conference Center. (Talladega is about 120 miles west of Atlanta, and 40 miles east of Birmingham.) I mentioned that the trees were bare when we left Kentucky, but they were green with just a hint of color when we arrived here, and two weeks later the ground is covered with red and yellow leaves! I have a whole different perspective on autumn leaves now, because we don’t have to rake them, and we don’t have to look at bare trees for the next five months! So as they drift down, and pile up on the grass, it’s nothing but beautiful!
We were to have six couples on this team, but one man was hurt on the last project and had to go home, so we have five couples….two are on their second project (only!), one is a brand new couple, and two of us have served four years. This team has energy!! But one huge blessing to us has been that we have a couple who is from Glendive, Montana! This is their first project, and it’s really special to us to be their
leaders. (That makes only three couples from Montana~~we need you!)
Shocco Springs is a facility larger than any we’ve worked in before…they can sleep 1400 people at one time; they have 55 meeting rooms! Their dining room can seat 500 people, and serves food equal to any restaurant in the area. They have the hotel type conference area, but they also have Adventure Camp, which is more rugged and like a summer camp. Their staff consists of 36 full-time, and over 200 full and part time during the summer. When I say Shocco Springs is big, I mean they’re BIG!!
The men spent two weeks stripping wallpaper in several of the offices, and then prepping and painting the walls, as well as tearing up the old carpet. They’ve also replaced decking and staircases at the Adventure Camp. We women spent the first week cleaning the upholstered chairs in the dining room (refer back to the number of people who can sit in that dining room!). The second week we were in the laundry, folding sheets and towels. Anyone who knows me knows that laundry is one of my least liked jobs, but when you’re working in an area
He's cutting the pads that are
______ size into steno notebook size. Before the cutter bars will drop down, a button has to be pushed with each hand. (This man is blind.) with three other women, and two staff members, we had a lot of laughs, and the mornings just flew by!
We toured the Alabama Industries for the Deaf and Blind. It’s part of a five campus program for sensory-impaired children and adults. (All five parts are in Talladega.) Their Helen Keller School begins education at three years old, and they can stay in the system through employment at AIDB. The workers make mops and all types of brooms; they do a lot of sewing~~every tie in every branch of the military is sewed in Talladega at the AIDB! They also make military duffle bags and survival packs, as well as US flags, aprons, sheets, and more. And they make writing tablets, from steno pads to the large conference-type tablets. The paper arrives in rolls that are ten miles long, and from there we watched it get cut, inked, cut again and again, and then bound until it became the finished product, and except for a few places, the work was done by someone who is blind, legally blind, or deaf. They market their paper products under the name of Skilcraft. They have a very interesting website. The tour is
He's trimming the stray pieces
from the mophead, and then pulling a plastic sleeve over it. In this case, they're making the mops for the Lions Club. This man was sighted, but deaf. not only fascinating, but humbling. (Many of the products sold by the Lions Club are made here, also). It may be narrow minded of me, but I expected the workers to be taken care of more…like escorted to their work stations, and have someone sighted that would tell them what to do next, but rather, the plant is set up for them to be independent (duh); the floor has a different texture on the walkways than on the work area, the cutting areas are surrounded by the soft cloth ropes you find in banks, or anywhere where you get to stand in line. The workers live independently in the area, and are transported by school bus, only because Talladega has just two taxi cabs. It’s a place of employment with quotas and rules.
We also toured Blue Bell creamery, and watched ice cream being made. At their factory (one of three, as it’s only marketed in the south) the workers can eat as much ice cream as they want during their lunches, and breaks. Too bad that’s not an RVICS project…or maybe it’s a good thing it’s not!
Back to camp (and I use that word loosely in
this case!), the first week there were 500 Habitat for Humanity people here, attending workshops on different aspects of their job. They were the people who are in charge of different areas of a building project.
The whole team will be here for Thanksgiving, and one of the guys is cooking a turkey, with the rest of us bringing the rest of it. We are able to use a kitchen/dining room in one of the lodges, and I know it will be fun.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!
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Sara!
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Great pictures, Mom! We're they using any of those sewing machines to make capes by any chance? :)