Second Spike!

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Happy December! It's been a very white winter season here at Sugar Pine; early last week it started snowing and didn't stop for about two days. All the snow has been great for sledding but it's definitely changed our work schedule. We put a halt on brush clearing and our whole team went to work on cabin renovations- which meant they were all painted and recarpeted in half the expected time. This left us with not much to do but shovel, shovel, shovel!

Our team has completed quite a few independent service hours. The Saturday before Thanksgiving was Serve Fresno day so a lot of people from the city of Fresno spent the day doing volunteer work with a variety of local non-profits. We had indented to work with the Ronald McDonald House, but were asked instead to help out at the Economic Opportunity Commission, a sanctuary for runaway and homeless youth. We were all really glad that we ended up there because it's a really amazing program that we never would have heard about otherwise.

That same night we went to a mission in Fresno to serve a dinner for the homeless men and women of Fresno. Not many of us had ever done anything like this before and a lot of people reacted to the environment and the overall experience in different ways at first. I think ultimately we all felt that it was really rewarding to be able to provide such a direct service to people in need. It also really opened our eyes to the reality of the lifestyle that some people in the city lead.

Last night we went to a training to learn how to install solar panels so that next weekend we can work with a company that provides solar panels to low-income home owners. Should be a really neat experience as long as they find a job for me on the ground instead of the roof!!

Yesterday afternoon a bunch of us started getting text messages from friends on other teams who had learned what their second project was going to be! We were away from camp at the time, so after being harassed by half the team our team leader called her boss to find out if ours had been announced yet. In typical AmeriCorps fashion she came back after the call pretending not to know anything ("All the teams are on different schedules... Ours won't be announced at the same time") and then she tried to distract us with the news that an AmeriCorps staff member had a baby girl!!! 😊

We figured Elizabeth knew but wanted to find a creative way to announce it so we tried to keep the questions to a minimum. So then this morning at breakfast Elizabeth gave each of us a crossword puzzle and told us the answers would spell out our next project!
It took us about five minutes to discover that after break Blue 3 will be heading out to Los Angeles to work in classrooms and tutor in an after school program!!

Some team members were hoping to return to Sacramento for a round, but I am so excited to check out LA!! I'm also very excited to do a project in the field I love 😊. The other elementary education major and I already made plans to get friendly with our principals and leave resumes! Haha

A week and a half left a Sugar Pine, then some meetings and planning back in Sacramento, then home to Vermont for the holidays!!

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