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!!