Summer of Service

The next 3 weeks are going to be some crazy weeks. We have finished our training, so I finally have a pretty good idea what we are going to be doing. Then again, with teenagers, all that could go out the window too!
Basically, this program, Summer of service, is a pilot program, that is being held in 3 locations this summer. Charleston SC; Denver, CO; and New Orleans, LA. Each campus will have 100, 14-17 yr olds, who will be the CMITS (Corps Members in Training), 2 Group leaders, and 20 Crew Leaders, which is what I am. My campus, here in Charleston, is the exception, but the Crew Leaders are current Americorps members, who have left their teams to do this project for 5 weeks (2 weeks of training and 3 weeks of camp). My campus is an exception because we have 13 people who have finished their 10 months, back in May, and have come back to do more service for 5 weeks. There are 9 of us, 3 from each of the other campus's, who are filling out the rest of the Crew Leader positions. My co-leader is actually a guy who was at the Charleston campus.

Last week, as i mentioned in my last posting, was National training. All of the crew leaders from each of the three Summer of Service (SOS) sites were in Sacramento CA. This week we had more trainings at our individual campus's. This was more site specific things for our individual programs. It was nice to be able to get to know the other crew leaders and the Charleston staff. I really like the staff, they are on top of their game and they really have their stuff together. Incase i havn't mentioned this before, the Charleston campus is closing after this program. The class that graduated in May, is the last Americorps class that will be here. Apparently headquarters is dealing with the funding cuts (remember those, last year when i didn't know what i was going to be doing??), by shutting down this campus since it's lease with the buildings was going to be up this next year. It really stinks that this campus is closing. From what I can tell the corps members here really like the program and it kinda seems like they get more out of it than I do in Sacramento. Sure, they have plenty of team and team leader problems, but that is gonna be anywhere!

Back to what I am doing these next few weeks. . .
The youth come on Sunday, and we will get them settled in their rooms and do a lot of the introduction stuff. We have our first team meetings where we gotta lay down the law so they stay in line for the rest of the time =). Monday we do inprocessing where they get uniforms, ID's, and some basic trainings on what the program is and what they will be doing. We have some teambuilding stuff early the first week and we start working on our projects on Tuesday. My team will be working at a summer camp for low income kids in Charleston. The camp has about 35 kids and they do arts and crafts, dance, sports, swimming, a little tutoring, and other fun activities during the day. My co-leader and I are really excited about the swimming a few times a week! Our CMITS (youth) are going to be able to plan some activities for the kids, and we get to go on 2 cool fieldtrips with them. David and I visited our site earlier this week and met the sponsors, it seems like they are really organized so working with them should be fun.
In the evenings we have some team activites that we get to plan for our groups, and they have a couple speakers coming, and other workshops on skills/ or subjects that they requested during orientation. I know that my team is going on what we like to call a "team date" with another team Friday, to the minor league baseball game. The other team's leaders are 2 people we've been hanging out with a lot so we decided a date would be fun. The teams at my Sacramento campus also team date, it's a lot of fun, and an easy way to get to hang out with other teams.

I think that kinda sums up the first week or so. I'll keep ya'll posted on how it goes, and more details along the way, as it comes up, of course. I am really excited about the next three weeks. The last two have been 2 of the best weeks i've had in Americorps, so I am hoping this continues, like I think it will. We are prepared and ready to go. . . lets hope the youth are too!!