So you want to send me mail??

I know ya'll are thinking, man, i really want to send Sarah mail. Well, good news, you can send me mail straight to Charleston, instead of going through Sacramento for the next month! So, from now (June 28) till July 28, if you could send mail to Charleston,that would get to me a lot faster. I will still get mail that goes to Sacramento first though.

The address in Charleston is:

Sarah Daigle
Americorps NCCC
2231 South Hobson Avenue
Charleston, SC 29405

We leave friday for the east coast, and have a full day of flying/layovers. This week's been good, i've enjoyed meeting the Charleston folks and getting to see some Sactown people as well!

Happy Harry Potter month!! =)

Is it really almost July???

Well folks, I am back in Sacramento this week, and I am already loving the ZERO humidity and slightly cooler temperatures! All of us (roughly 60) who are going to be crew leaders for the Summer of Service program (the youth camp) are training here on our campus this week. 14 of us from my Sacramento campus arrived yesterday, and got settled back into our old rooms here on base. Today we are running the van shuttles to the airport to pick up all the other people from other campus's. We are pretty excited to be on our "home turf" because some of us havn't had the best experiences with teams from the Denver and Perry Point campus, so the fact that we know where everything is and it's our rules, is great. Yes, even though it is all Americorps NCCC, you'd be surprised how different each campus is, regarding rules and how they run things. We are considered the strictest campus, and we are definitely the only campus that takes PT (working out) seriously. Unfortunately for those other folks, during the 5 weeks of this project we are doing PT 5 days a week, even with the kids when they are with us for 3 weeks!

Last week started off as a typical week. I got to work on the Habitat project that my team is doing. I went to the interior site with my friend Andy. The house was at the sheetrocking stage, so i felt pretty comfortable with that task. The 3 days i worked last week, we had 3 different groups of volunteers come work at our site, all of which were good groups. Monday's group was a group of youth from a high school in Michigan. Tuesday we had about 11 adults who work for a company called Microform and they were on a business trip in New Orleans but their regional director scheduled a "team building" day in their 3 days and they worked with us. They were amazing, and completely sheetrocked the 3 bedrooms in like 6 hours. They were from all over the east coast/midwest. They were a funny group, so we had a lot of fun working with them. Wednesday's volunteer group was from a church in Wabash Indiana. Those of you from Mebane Presbyterian might recognize that town, since that is where the Smith family is from! (Our pastor's family, for those of you non Mebane folks). They didn't know the Smiths, but i thought it was cool they were from the same place. Working with the high school aged groups reminded me of youth trips, and I really enjoyed those days as well.

The house we were working on was almost completely flooded after the hurricane. The family lives in a Fema trailer across the street, so we were able to interact with them while working on the house. They are a middle aged couple, who has 4 children, but only one still lives at home. Derrick, the son, is 7 yrs old and helped the framing crews of volunteers raise the walls in his room, while they were building the house. He came in and hung out with us some during the day. The mom, Erica, was around making sure we had everything we needed, and offering a helping hand each day. She has a prostetic leg, has had it most of her life, but she was willing to help however she could. The husband, Darryl did all of the AC/heating work on the house and does work on the weekends as well. It was great to get to know the family while we were working, it really drives you to keep working through the heat and exhaustion!

You may have noticed i said i only worked 3 days last week, and that is because i experienced the downside of communal living and came down with the sickness that has been running rampid among my team and the 2 other Sacramento teams down there. Luckily i caught it early and was only out Thurs and Friday. I am feeling better today, except for the ridiculous congestion and sneezing. Hopefully that'll go away soon so i can enjoy the low humidity running and easier breathing!

I am not quite sure what kind of training is going on this week, our schedule looks kinda boring, but we'll find a way to make it fun, i'm sure. I will have a roommate in my room, which is kinda strange to me, since it won't be Heather. It's only a week, so it'll be alright. I unpacked my stuff yesterday, because I had a dresser and, well, pretty much beacuse I could. It'll be a pain to repack everything, but it's one week where i'm not living out of a suitcase, and that's exciting to me!

Hope everyone has a wonderful last week of June!!

I have now crossed the country on Interstate 10. We started in Cali way back in March and this week I was on the eastern section of I-10 to it's end in Florida. FYI, it is one boring highway.

This past week was a strange week. Sunday started out good, with a couple of us going to a church in the garden district of New Orleans. Sunday night I shaved almost 2 minutes off our mile and a half run that we do regularly. Overall, a good day. Monday was a typical work day. However, my week changed monday evening. My team leader called me around 8:30, while i was out with some of my team doing laundry. I was informed that I would be going with about 50 others to Charleston SC for the rest of the week, to drive a bunch of vans back down this direction. See, the Charleston campus is closing after this summer, so they no longer need tons of 12-15 passenger vans. Tuesday morning we set off for the 2 day drive there and 2 day drive back. We crammed about 11 people in 12 passenger vans for the 2 day drive down there. I should add here, that i only knew 5 people on this trip. Most of the others were corps members from the Denver campus, and a few from the Perry Point campus. Lets just say that some people from other campus's don't really care about meeting people from the different campus's. The 2 days driving back was much better because we had 2-3 people in each van, and I was with people I knew each time. Plus i got to listen to A LOT of country music, which is not something i get much of with my teammates!
We drove to Jacksonville the first night, then to Charleston the 2nd, then back to Tallahassee the 3rd and got back to New Orleans Friday afternoon. The trip wasnt very well organized, we did a lot of sitting around when we arrived to hotels, or leaving in the mornings, or at the Charleston NCCC campus to get the vans. Overall, it was a long week, and i would have much rather worked on houses and spent an extra few days with my team that I will be leaving for 5 weeks. We did get to walk around downtown Charleston for 2 hours Wednesday night, which was cool. I will be back there in 2 weeks, so i now know a few places that I definitly want to get back to.

This week I get to choose which site I work at, since I don't need to be trained to run certain sites. Americorps members are the "site supervisors" at the different sites for Habitat for Humanity here in St Bernard. The homes being built here are funded by a program called Camp Costal Oupost, which is inturn funded by the United Arab Emerits. . . it all comes down to oil. There are 2 big oil refineries here in St Bernard and Chalmette, so the United Arab Emerits has good ties to this region and views this as a good project to pour more money into. (I thought this was an interesting tidbit). Anyways, back to what we do. The homes being built here go through 5 stages. Flooring, framing, exterior, roofing, and interior. Americorps members are the site supervisors in charge at each site and they lead the different volunteers that come through each week. Members of my team are being trained by these Denver people to run the worksites once they leave next week. Since I am leaving for another project Saturday, I am able to choose what I do.

So other than the awkward road trip, I am doing well. I did have some excitement the week before last, with having to go to the doctor because apparently a pore in my lip had gotten clogged. So I had a small lump on the inside of my lip for, oh almost a month. I got a nice shot to numb my lip and the doctor cut whatever was clogged out. My lip was a nice noticably bigger size for 2 days, but it is normal again now, and that is all that matters.

I hope it's a little cooler and less humid wherever you are than it is here!
Till next time....

Camp Hope

This spike is my teams first experience with communal living. I don't mind it so much, personally i enjoy being around other people, instead of my team 24/7. The camp is in an old elementary school building. There are 4 wings (A-D), and in each of the old classrooms are bunk beds or single twin beds. About 15 in each room, so there isn't a lot of extra space. I have put sheets and towels up around my bottom bunk so i have a nice little cozy cave, it's nice. The walls don't go all the way up to the ceiling, so you can hear what is going on in the next room. You can even look over into the next room from the top bunk! haha.
There are bathrooms in the middle of A and B wing, and then another in the middle of C and D wing. These only have 2 sinks and 4 toilets. Well, i can't speak for the guys toilets, but i can see their sinks from our sinks. The showers are in another building outside. . . maybe a 50 yrd walk from the front doors of the building. There are probably 20 showers in them, all separated by continuous curtains. Shower shoes are a definite must! Since there is no aircondition in this building you sweat once you get out of the shower, and are trying to put your clothes on! Overall though, the shower area is clean so it's not bad. I've definitly been in worse over the last 5 years!
Meals are served in the cafeteria. They havn't exactly been the best meals for me, but i make do, even eating huge salads for dinner. . .yum!!(if you know me, you know how much i love salads. . .) I am sure for normal people the meals are great. We make sandwiches for lunch, and they have fruit for us to take too. I found a Whole Foods the other day so i was able to stock up on my bread, which my lungs appreciate since I am running almost everyday again now.

So that's kinda how my life is going. Oh yeah, we work from about 7:30-4 or 5ish. I think there are 350 volunteers staying here this week, but it can hold up to 1000. They are also building a new Camp Hope down the road in another old middle school. I'll write more about that later, because the project I will start next week will have more to do with that and Habitat for Humanity!

Gotta give up the computer. There are only 2 here. Have a wonderful weekend!!!

home sweet home

Last week was our long awaited summer break. As most of ya'll know by now, I spent the week in wonderful North Carolina! Most of the week, I was in the mountains with mom and dad, and i was able to see Jason and Amy some too. Friday and Saturday I was in Mebane, which definitly wasn't as relaxing as the rest of the week! I was able to spend some time with my best friend, have lunch with some of the youth, and see all of my other "parents".
Summer break couldn't have come at a better time, i was becoming frustrated at certain people on my team. Being around my wonderful family and friends at home helped me refocus and reminded me how wonderful of a support system I have there.
For the next three weeks I am living at Camp Hope, in Violet LA (just southeast of New Orleans). There are 2 other teams from my Sacramento campus living and working here, along with 14 other Americorps teams from the other 2 campuses. I am excited about being around other people, not just my team. I have a couple friends on the other teams that are Christian and I am able to talk to about things that I havn't really had the opportunity to living with just my teammates.

I think our project is changing a little, even though we start tomorrow, so I will update you later this week about what we are doing here.
My internet time is limited here, much more than in previous places, so my posts will probably be much shorter. (Which probably is a nice switch compared to some of my longer ones in the past. . . =) )
Hope you have a wonderful week. It was great to see everyone last week!
MPC youth- thanks for coming to La Cocina, i loved seeing all of you!!