Conrad being the bomb

Sweet drumming(..and huge guns..ha!)

This is Buck...the United Saints mascot! (His little lady friend just had puppies...what a pimp.)

Rollin' and Brushin'

It's been a busy busy but productive and great two weeks! If anyone is in need of a paint job..interior or exterior..holler at me. I have perfected my brushing skills whether it be on the exterior of a Methodist Church or the interior of a renovated home (i guess it all really depends on what you consider "perfection") That's what all of my work days have consisted of except for a few scattered projects such as hanging drywall(yikes..) and maybe another that i can't really remember right now.
Big John(he's like 7 feet tall..no joke) is a master painter who came to United Saints 1st St Recovery from California as a volunteer. He took it upon himself (along with a lot of help from Sherwin Williams and volunteers) to repaint the church that the organization is headquartered in. He selected me to be on his team when he saw me on a 24foot ladder changing light bulbs in the multi-purpose room...(I guess Jill's fear of heights skipped me!) So, i've been working with him a lot - it's been a lot of fun and a great learning experience but, i think i'm ready to dabble in a few other things...
Last Saturday was some anniversary for Hand's On New Orleans, one of the biggest relief organizations down here (I worked with them when i went to Biloxi, MS) So it was a day of service and a big celebration after. I helped clear/clean out a garden that will grow fresh vegetables for a local restaurant. After working, a big meal was served and a local high school marching band played (the dancers sure knew how to shake it...that's for sure) We also got a free t-shirt. It's purple!
For one of our service learning projects the team went to go see "Trouble the Water" at a local "theater". The movie is a first hand documentary about the events of a Hurricane Katrina- a woman and her husband found a video camera about a week before the storm and documented everything from days before the storm, during the storm and returning to their neighborhood two weeks after and realizing no one had even inspected the houses yet. It was a huge reality check of why we are here and why the city is the way it is today...such an eye opener! It was nominated this year for an Acadamy Award - didn't win though, I definitely recommend renting it!
Today part of the team went to the Rhythmic Roots and Green Ability Fair to work and spread the NCCC word. While we didn't get a huge response in terms of people being interested in the program, it was a great day to spend outside listening to an African drumming group and a 7 piece brass band! It's been raining all week so having today to spend out in the sun enjoying awesome music and the company of great people was a real treat!
It seems as though all of the days are running together - i find that i like it much better not knowing what day of the week it is or the date. We have been here for three weeks now but it seems way longer! I'm sure once these 8 weeks come to a close it will feel like we just arrived the day before! We still don't know where we are going for second round..but hopefully it will be announced soon!
PEACE&LOVE!

travy cleaning out a house fire.

julie at john harrison's house.

our corner.

mikal(a long term volunteer) painting john harrison's house.

paintin' the sign on the side of our house.

the team. somewhere.

21902 to 70113

So, we made it. And here is a run down of my life from 3/6 -3/11.

Friday-Saturday:

We were the last of 14 vans out of the neighborhood - badger 4 apparently loves stuff. We had to repack and leave some essentials that didn't fit in the van behind..such as the blender and the rice cooker. After getting pretty lost past Baltimore we finally got on the road and made it into Knoxville around 9. Slept. Got up. Left. Ate. Drove. Ate again. and finally made it into New Orleans. We settled into our little volunteer house - we have a kitchen, living room, and 2 bunk rooms. It's a tight space but it works! We then met with our project sponsor Daryl...who is a young guy that came down to New Orleans from Minnesota right after Katrina hit..volunteered for a bit. left. and then came back and started up United Saints 1st Recovery. The organization is run out of a Methodist church and that's were all of our meals and meetings are. (We eat communal meals...a guy name Chris is a great chef and fills up our belly's with delicious treats everyday! gumbo, soup, jumbalaya...etc.)

On Saturday night the team went down to the French Quarter and Bourbon St. It's pretty wild now because of all the "spring breakers", but it was fun to check out the scene. On a side note: The carriages that transport the young and old in love are not pulled by horses but by mules. And they will not stop for anything...especially a six-piece band followed by team Badger4 who crashed a wedding party's processional march through the streets. 

Monday-Thursday:

It was a long hot week. Everyday in 80's - needless to say my farmers "tan" is coming along nicely. There are a multitude of projects that we can pick to work on everyday. A lot of the houses that we work on weren't necessarily greatly affected by the storm but need a lot of help nonetheless. United Saints is big into redeveloping the community of Central City (where we are located) We are currently working on a few houses, painting the church, handing out food and some other random projects. I did a little bit of everything this week. On Monday i painted a sign in front of our home. Tuesday: Handed out bags of food at an organization called Angel Food. Here people can come in once a month and get a pretty big bag of food for free. Wednesday: Painted at John Harrisons's house (whatta nice fella!) Thursday: Worked at Mr. Masons house. He bought us delicious shrimp, oyster and sausage Po Boy's (sandwiches). yum. Everyday after working and dinner we went to the New Orleans Mission. We helped serve dinner to those that were spending the night there. It was a pretty awesome experience and we will definitely be going back in the weeks to come. 

Friday-Sunday:

In the summer a fleet of vans and trucks drove over to Texas for Ike relief. For some reason or another they did not drive all of the vehicles back to Perry Point so about 16 of us from 4 different teams from New Orleans and Lake Charles,LA (4hours north/east of NO) drove out to Austin to pick up those vehicles and bring them back. It was a long and rainy drive. At least we packed and dressed for the weather. WRONG. We all sported shorts and t-shirts in the sweet 40 degree weather. Typical. We got to see the city on Saturday - it was pretty cute. Maybe i will return when it's not so cold.

This week there are A LOT more spring break volunteers coming to work for United Saints. About 45 more than last week. It should be pretty interesting to see how much we get accomplished and how we all get fed. I have taken a lot pictures of projects and where we are living so i will put those up asap. So far things are stupendous!

And we're rollin'...

Thought i would share with ya'll a picture of my team. We got some today in our fancy black&whites(our formal uniform) but we all looked subpar. (Conrad, Tony, Gina, Me, Travis, Crystal, Julie, Chase and Randi. Good lookin' Badger 4)

The directors brief is over. I've been inducted. And my red bag is packed. CTI(Corps Training Institute) is officially over. By around 8am tomorrow morning we will have begun our 18hour journey to New Orleans. HOLY. MOLY.

Our directors brief was FLAWLESS. We had to give our 20 minute presentation that breaks down our entire project to Dave Beech (the deputy director) and a few other important people. They were extremely impressed with what we presented (one of the best they've seen)...Tony was pretty happy! The few days before the directors brief were pretty stressful - so the entire team was pumped to have that weight lifted! 

This morning we got "inducted" as the official ClassXV of the Atlantic Region of *NCCC.  The coolest part of the ceremony was that three local Civilian Conservation Corps vets came and were inducted into the newly established Atlantic Region Hall-of-Fame. the CCC was established by FDR in 1933 as a part o the New Deal. *NCCC holds the same values and principles as those of the CCC - there's a long history of behind this program and the importance of what myself and my fellow corps members will accomplish this year was really put into perspective today. Pretty neat. 

Like i said, tomorrow we will be leaving bright and early. We will drive for about 9 hours to Knoxville, TN..spend the night and then continue on Sat. for another 9 hours until we arrive in New Orleans. We will be leaving behind snow and 35 degrees for sun and 75 degrees. not to shabby.

I. Can't. Wait!!!! That's all. 

ISP-Camp Wabanna

A requirement to get all 1,700 of our hours is to do 80 of our own - this is called ISP (individual service project) On this particular ISP a group of 15 of us went to Camp Wabanna in Edgewater, MD..(southern Maryland passed Annapolis) During the winter the camp is a conference center and it doesn't really look like a camp at all (mom and jane, you would like all of the big old buildings!) They were pretty grateful when they got the call from us because there was A LOT of work to get done! In the main lodge they redid a lot of the rooms - so we came in a did some of the finish work...cleaning the floors, doors, sanding, painting, etc...along with some other random tasks that needed to get done! Lucky for us, this weekend there was a conference for men or something so, we got fed lunch and dinner! Here are some pictures...

Michelle had to sand and clean the floors of some unfinished rooms...she's my roommate :)

There was a crew cleaning some of the finished rooms. This is Chase..he's my teammate AND from Cincinnati!

More housekeeping..

sexy...

Windows needed to be sanded and then painted. This crew is sanding!

And this is Levi painting!

Jill informed me that it would be appropriate to make a glossary of all the AmeriCorps*NCCC acronyms. We'll see....