Parts of Our World...

Save the mermaids, cut your soda can rings before you throw them away! This strip was partly inspired by a beach clean-up that my NCCC team and I recently participated in during our time in Hawaii. There was just so much garbage on this one beach and it wasn't even a beach that had public access, no all this trash came from all over the world and has washed up on the shores here and it happens all the time. As human beings everything we do really does have a significant impact on the world around us. The WHOLE world. Here's a photo from the beach clean up, in addition to our team ten there was also a large number of volunteers and together we managed to pick up around 3000 pounds of garbage in an afternoon, which unfortunately didn't even scratch thesurface of what was already there and what will wash up there in the future. The only real solution is if people become more aware of what happens to their trash after they are rid of it and we all work towards a better solution to this problem we all face. Be sure to be back here next week for this month's comic, part one of The Vaginal Avengers: Red Vag of Courage.

Round One Summary: The Presidio Trust

My and Blue One's time in San Francisco working at the Presidio came to a close on December 16th. The Presidio, a former military base located in the San Francisco bay area, has been apart of the National Park Services as part of the Golden Gate National Recreational Area since October of 1994. The Presidio’s funding is unique to other national parks in that its federal appropriations diminish each year with appropriations ending completely after the fiscal year of 2012. In 1996 Congress created the Presidio Trust with the mission to preserve the Presidio and make it financially self-sufficient.

We had variety of projects during our time in SF amongst the numerous departments of the Trust. In addition to the community garden I mentioned in an earlier post we also bury a new irrigation line with the forestry crew, Built 17 Green house benches, renovated garden beds in one of the many neighborhoods in the park, helped operate the Dragonfly Creek volunteer event, and weeded more non-native species than you can imagine. Working with the Presidio has provided us with some very unique ISP (Independent Service Project) opportunities, like working on the famous Alcatraz, and resorting the natural beauty of Redwood Creek at Muir Beach with the Golden Gate Park National Conservancy. Seeing the need for more community involvement at Muir Beach Blue One put together their first community day for the new volunteer opportunity.

It wasn't all work and no play for the team though; We had taken full advantage of any downtime, exploring the various parts of the city like The Castro, Height Street, The Mission, Fisherman’s Warf and other famous San Francisco locations. Some of us even met music icons They Might Be Giants and Brian Wilson. It was also a great round for me personally because during the project I got to go to a comic book store signing by the creative team of one of my current favorite comics Batwoman. It was great getting to meet J. H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman, they gave me very helpful advise in pursuing a career in comics.

This project was also great for meeting AmeriCorps NCCC Alumni. Two of the interns at the Presidio, Laura who we worked with, and Marlene who we shared our housing with were both part of the team that last served the Presidio and both got internships shortly afterward. We also by chance ran into an AmeriCorps Alumni from almost 10 years ago. Turns out he and several other members from his class all live in San Francisco now. They treated us to a nice dinner of Pizza and stories of their years with NCCC. After the we finished our project we headed back to Sacramento for a few days of training and then I went home for a couple weeks as part of my winter break. The first illustration is of our project portfolio cover that I did, the second picture is the flyer (also by me) for the community day for the Red Wood Creek Restoration that we put together. I fly back to Sac town tomorrow where I'll be for a few more days of training and then we begin Round 2; working at Camp Mokule'ia, in Waialua, Hawaii! This will probably be my last post for a while expect big things to happen with this blog as well as other locations on the internet come next month so until then Aloha!

San Francisco and the Presidio Trust

So San Francisco has been absolutely wonderful. With the exception of a few rainy days the weather has been a much welcomed change of pace for me (usually this time of year I;m usually fearing for the coming snow if it hasn't already fallen yet.) Last weekend I was outside in a t-shirt and I forgot it was the middle of November, perfect space vest weather. Coming to SF I decided to take up the challenge of no shave november to be green (also I forgot to pack my razor and shaving cream.) and let me tell you, not shaving sucks. I always have a little scruff but never the creeper mustache and the shaggy neck beard thing I've got going for me right now, it looks pretty awful and totally uncomfortable, I'm pretty stoked for December 1st. I would also like to mention that before leaving Sacremento we had another Baseline physical fitness assessment and I managed to shave about 4 minutes off my previous run time putting me at 11 minutes and something something seconds. I also found out that the timed run in Vinton was only a mile while in Sacramento it's a mile and a half so I'm actually doing a lot better than I thought I was. I've also been continuing to try to be more adventurous in the kitchen with my team lately. I was successful in making my Mother's beloved cheesecake recipe and I was less successful in trying to make her potato pancake recipe after starting a small fire with the vegetable oil. I was however able to put it out very quickly by smothering it with flour, though not quickly enough to prevent the smoke detector from going off and having a visit from the fire department. I did however learn from the fireman that you do not want to use flour to smother a fire because apparently when the powder is in the air it is quite combustable, luckily this was not the case this time and I now know where the fire extinguisher is located. It hasn't been all fun and kitchen fires though, not to say I haven't been enjoying our work with the Presidio Trust. The Presidio is a formal military post turned national park located right on the bay, (the Golden Gate Bridge is literally in our backyard.) We have many assignments within the Presidio during our time here, during our first full week here we created raised bed garden boxes for a new community Garden for one of the neighborhoods within the Presidio. All this week we're working with the forestry crew installing a new irrigation pipeline within one of the areas in the park.
Before Blue One
After Blue One.

CTI Wrap Up and Catch Up Part Four: Induction and Away We Go

November 3rd 2011 was a pretty magical day for me. Aside from it being my 21st birthday it was also the day we got officially inducted into NCCC as Corps members (again, for me.) The fact it was also my 21st birthday was actually a bit of a pisser because it's an NCCC policy that CMs and TLs are not allowed to drink within 24 hours of leaving and arriving to Spike and that's exactly what we did right after induction was over. Alcohol was nothing new to me though so I wasn't too bummed out, I mean I did work in a bar for almost 6 months (not that I ever got drinks from there) and my family pretty much shoves beer down my throat so I wasn't missing any life changing experiences here. What was however awesome was that during the ceremony the region director led the corps in singing happy birthday to me, how he found out I do not know but it's still pretty sweet to have 200 something people sing happy birthday to you. I just felt bad for the one girl who also had a birthday that day but did not get a song. After the ceremony I also finally worked up the courage to do something that I never do, and was successful in doing so, incredibly awkward, but successful. (I'm also being really vague on purpose so don't bother asking me to elaborate.) So after all was said and done CTI was over and Blue One was ready to hit the road in our over stuffed 15 passenger van and go on their first assignment, which is where I am now. Working with the Presidio Trust in San Francisco California. I've been loving it so far and you'll be hearing all the details in up coming posts.

CTI Wrap Up and Catch Up Part Three: Halloween

Halloween happened to be towards the end of CTI so naturally Class 18 had to throw a costume party. It's the first Halloween I actually dressed up for since high school, (Not some lame maturity high ground thing, I just hadn't really had the opportunity to until this year.) and I went as Ash from Pokemon. (cause if you don't already know from my numerous Pokemon related posts on this blog I really enjoy Pokemon.) By a bizarre and awesome happenstance there was also a girl in the corps who dressed up as Misty from Pokemon and together we won the costume contest. (Note the first time I've won a costume contest and it's also the first year that I did not make my costume myself.)

CTI Wrap Up and Catch Up Part Two: Camp Mendocino

As part of Corps Training Institute (more commonly referred to as CTI by Amerifolk) All of the units went on a camping trip at Camp Mendocino. Camp Mendocino is a camping facility used and run by the Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco and allows NCCC to do trainings there in exchange for some service work on the grounds. All the cabins and bathrooms were open air which, in addition to being up in the mountains and in the woods, showers were the coldest and miserable experience you could imagine. Some people went the entire 4 days without showering once, I was not one of those people cause I know I stink after day one. Sleeping would have sucked butt too if not for our NCCC issued sleeping bags that can withstand 40 below. The big challenge at camp was the High ropes course. At first I was really excited, it was something I had never done before, it was adventurous and there was a zip line at the end. I had joked with my teammates that this was going to be my Batman training... then I actually got up there and was terrified. I was completely safe the whole time but it was still quite possibly the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Luckily my team was very supportive and cheered me on the whole way as well as the others. I did however handle the zip line like a pro though, as terribly uncomfortable as it was down there. I was so proud of my team that day, there were people who before getting on the high ropes course were scared of it but every single one of my teammates tried it and succeeded with flying colors.

CTI Wrap Up and Catch Up Part One: Meet Blue One

So I've been with my team for a little while now and they're going to be the focus of many of my future entries so I might as well introduce you to them. Starting from the top right hand corner you've got Kameke from Texas, she's a sweet girl and a lot of fun, she often tries to stop herself from saying "ya'll" but when it slips out and she catches herself it's pretty funny. bellow her to the left is Terrin from Illinois, she also graduated high school as part of the class of 09 and like me hasn't started college yet. To the left of her is Chalynn from California, and she is quite possibly the funniest member of our team. She does all these little voices and characters at the most random of times and it always cracks me up. She's the one behind what has pretty much become our team chant, where she goes "Blue Whaaaat!?!" and we all reply "Blue One!!!" To the left of Chalynn is my roommate Aaron from Washington state. He's fresh out of high school but old at heart (so he tells people) He's super cool, he also reads comics so while we were in Sacramento we would walk to the local comic shop together. (a six mile walk total but it's okay cause we're beasts.) Below Kameke and Terrin is Whitney also from Washington, she's a pretty chill girl and also someone who appreciates Bowie. We always seem to loose her though, we could be going somewhere and turn around and she'll be missing. Below Whitney is Cody from Missouri, Cody's pretty cool he always wears these green sunglasses, I don't think I've ever seen him without them. Underneath him is Katelyn from Delaware. She has the most infectious laugh that reminds me of Marge Simpson and Guinea pigs (but in a good way.) To the left of Cody is Becky, my fellow Ohioan. Becky and I have pretty similar personalities which makes me wonder if it's an Ohio thing. And finally our Fearless Leader, Travis from upstate New York. Travis was a Corps member last year at the Pacific Region campus (where we're serving now.) he's kinda awkward, but that's okay because so's our whole team it's kinda our team word.

Shopping for and Feeding 20 People

I recently did some grocery shopping and meal planning with my team members and leader. I was a little more involved this time with the whole meal planning process than with my last team. (basically anytime I had to cook, I made my homemade Mac and Cheese, which mind you, is good, but got old after a while.) This time it was up to me and fellow Ohioan and teammate Becky to shop for all the ingredients for the multiple dinners. This was no easy task, we had to stick to a strict budget (something I should do more often) and we had to figure out what was the best deal for our dollar. I've come to the conclusion that grocery shopping, especially for large groups of people is very frustrating, but also very rewarding. (Aside from getting food out of it there was a rather wonderful feeling of satisfaction when we managed to get all of our needed groceries while staying under budget.) Becky and I bought ourselves a massive tub of ice cream in celebration of our superior budget shopping (on our own dime).
The real trial, however, came monday when myself and two of my other teammates were challenged with the task of cooking one of the dinners for the two teams. (our own and Green 4) With our powers combined the we made three Lasagnas and they were tasty. This was a bit of a milestone for me, Aside from my mac and cheese I have never really made a successful meal for people before. (successful being that it actually tastes good and people don't complain about it.) I had tried to make Lasagna before for my last team but it did not go well... at all. This time however (with help) I have concord the staple of Italian cuisine that had once evaded me and my efforts were recognized, WITH PRAISE! (I enjoy praise :3)

NCCC Physical Training (PT)

Yesterday morning (the very early morning) we had our first day of the intense workout known as PT (Physical Training) to NCCCers. Our first PT was our baselines, tests of endurance that would help us determine our current level of physical fitness, where we need to improve, and help put us in groups of people who are in about the same shape as ourselves. The tests in our baselines included Push ups, sit ups, a sit and reach, and a mile and a half run. Having done all of these tests (with the exception of the sit and reach) during my previous Americorps term I'm afraid to say that I have since regressed in physical endurance. I'm going to blame it on the fact that since my last corps year, I haven't really kept up on the PT. I will say this however, the step back has really motivated me to take a huge step forward and really take exercising a lot more seriously this time around, I'm making it a personal goal of mine to not only beat my current record, but also the one that I finished with last time. So that means that before the end of this year I'm going to have to run a mile and a half in under 9 minutes ( I'm currently at 15 minutes and was at 9) and I have to be able to do at least 35 of both push ups and sit ups. I'm going to make this happen, DETERMINATION!!!

Meetings Doodles

As every NCCC member knows very well, the first several weeks of the term consists of nothing but trainings and meetings. In an effort to to stay awake to through these meetings my team often doodles (while paying attention) during these meetings. We even have a doodle board in the dorms where we hang our creations. drew the following pictures during yesterday's meetings. I'm not quite sure how the punk rock angel chick ended up naked but it kinda just happened I kinda just drew these on the spot, not much thought put into either. I defenently tend to draw more women than men, I find them easier and over all more fun to draw.

Arriving In California, First Photoshop drawing

Yesterday I safely arrived in Sunny Sacramento California to begin me second AmeriCorps NCCC Corps year. The count down was pretty sucktastic, sorry, I had a cold for most of the days leading up to my departure and not in any condition to blog about it. So This image here, is a bit of a milestone for me, it's the first digitally colored art of mine that I've done without paint and with Photoshop! I'm for the most part self teaching myself how to use this program, with plenty of helpful tips from friends and family, and I'm sure I've done some of this stuff wrong, but I'll learn more as I go. The inspiration for this picture comes from the video for this song that a friend of mine put on facebook that I had stuck in my head for the longest time. (the video has a bunch of rollerskating girls.)

Count Down to NCCC Class 18: 11 days; The Evolution from Amateur to Free Lance Artist...

It's been a while since I last posted... again. This tends to happen a lot with me, but seeing as I'm going back into Americorps in less than two weeks I need to get back into the habit of updating regularly. So with 11 days to go I present to you the story of how I have entered the paid artists club. I recently received the pay check for the t-shirt design I did for Great Lakes a while back. I was paid with a 100 dollar gift card to Great Lakes and a 100 dollar check of real money (both things I enjoy.) The shirts aren't in print yet the graphic designer that GLBC hired, Amira, has been doing wonderful things with it, she's redrawn the whole thing from my design and it looks spectacular, (I like it far more than anything I was drawing.) It's still my concept but with her art. I wish I had a file of the current version to share otherwise I would but sadly I don't, hopefully sometime in the future though.

While I Was Out Part 14: The End; Legendary Day and The Last Week of Maple.

A little more that two months after it all actually happened I've come to the conclusion of my recap of my time as a member of Maple Unit class 16A of the North Central Region. One word to describe how the first Maple Unit went out; Legendary. Headed by the now equally legendary Mike Kamen, Legendary Day was a day about Class 16A forever leaving it's mark on not only the staff of North Central, but also the Braille school and the community of Vinton as a whole. The day started with a pot luck breakfast between all the teams. I made my Mom's Potato pancake recipe with the help of Blaze. All the teams were then given projects through out the community and the Braille school.
I was given the task of leading Maple 4 (plus Blaze and Autumn) in painting two murals for the School's future Recycling and Compost areas. (I was given the task because I had designed both Murals.) The day ended with another pot luck this time open to the community of Vinton hosted by us, and after dinner we all sang altered versions of Johnny Cash's "I've Been Everywhere"(We changed the locations of I've been everywhere to locations that our teams went to through out the ten months.) and the Beatles "Hey Jude" which we changed to "Hey Jody" and sang it to the lovely Jody Burns our Deputy Regional director of programing.
Later in the week was our awards banquette which I hosted. (And later turned into a nightmare for me.) To my surprise I a was given the award for the most outstanding personal growth in the entire corps which the night go a lot easier for me. And then came Feb. 4Th. A tearful morning filled with goodbyes and hugs and shuttles to the airport. My first flight was filled with fellow Maples as we were bound for Chicago looking to catch our connections home, and then flying to Cleveland it was just me again, alone. So now I'm home again, this time in Lakewood, I've got a job and now I know I get to do it all again come October, this time in California. Hopefully the next time around I can keep my postings of these events a little more current.

While I Was Out Part 13: Crossroads for Youth, The Fourth and Final Round

So round four was the last one for us and the boys and girls of Maple One spent it in Oxford Michigan, working with Crossroads for Youth. Crossroads is a rehabilitation facility for children who get in trouble with the court system. Our job was split between painting various rooms on the grounds during the day and serving as mentors for the children in the evening. Legally I am not sure as to how much more information I am allowed to disclose about my time there on this blog so I'm just going to leave it at that. Our time in Michigan was smack dab in the middle of the holiday season so it was real convenient for me to go back home for thanksgiving, but less so for Christmas. (before we went on our winter break we were required to report back to the Iowa campus for a few days of training and meetings and from there we were allowed to go home.)
I had to take one miserable bus ride home from Iowa to Ohio where this one weird guy who smelled of B.O talked to me for the entire time from when we got on at the Iowa/Illinois boarder, until we got to Chicago. Between all the trips the team took from Iowa to Michigan we saw a lot of Chicago. (Chicago was our half way point in which we'd stop driving and call it a day.) One of the nights we decided to go out and see the city which was cool because we got to see Chicago with of it's Christmas decorations out, but man it was freakin' cold out.

While I Was Out Part 12: Fish Hatchery/ 20th B-day/ IMOM

So A little more than halfway through our time in Waverly we ran out of work, 'cause we were just that efficient. (That and not all the houses we were assigned to work on were cleared yet so we had to wait for that all to happen.) So we were assigned a mini project at the Rathbun Fish Hatchery of Moravia Iowa! (We didn't know where Moravia was either.) The Mission: Remove sand bags and other flood barriers from the grounds that were set up by a previous NCCC team during the flood season. My team was there for about a week but Victoria and I were only there for two days for we got pulled aside for a special Composite team to work on the Iowa Mission of Mercy. (IMOM for short.) The day Victoria and I left for IMOM was also my 20th birthday so in the couple days we were at the hatchery the team took me out for a birthday dinner. (which I didn't even know was a birthday dinner until there was an army of teenagers singing happy birthday to me and handing me cake.) I also got the whole team to watch Spirited Away on one of the nights, which they all liked! So then when Victoria, Andrea and Myself left the Hatchery for Vinton, (Andrea was going back to Vinton for some reason that I can't remember.) we got picked up by our unit leader Jimmy Kelly. The girls fell asleep in the back and left me to talk with Jimmy all by myself for the 2 hour car ride which was actually kinda cool. We talked about music, specifically the Beatles (he said his favorite album was Revolver, mine was Srgt. Pepper's, and that Harrison was my least favorite Beatle.), the state of Ohio (he was a student at Ohio state.) and other things that escapes me at the moment. That night Victoria and I also met up with the other members of the composite team Maple Miscellaneous (I totally came up with that name.) which was led by the coolest Support TL Joy Whitt (also my advisor in the NCCC Yearbook)
and included Mike Kamen and other awesome Maples that I haven't mentioned in this blog yet. We all went out with Gordo and Maple 5 who were also in town the night of my birthday, and they also sang happy birthday to me. (not as well as the teenagers but it was late.) It was the first time I did anything special for my birthday since I had turned 18 so it was pretty nice. So About IMOM. What IMOM is is an organization that helps provide free dental care to people who can not ordinarily afford it in the state of Iowa. Every year they host an event in a different part of Iowa (This year was Cedar Rapids) in which they provide this free care to anybody who walks into the stadium/convention center for the whole weekend they run the event. Our Job as NCCC members were to assist the doctors in running and operating the different stations in the registration and treatment process and helping manage the other volunteers in their responsibilities. My duty along with my volunteer henchmen and women was to keep the patients waiting for their treatments organized and dismissing them to their treatment areas when the doctors on the floor was ready to see them. It was a pretty big task, (Victoria said I had the hardest job out of all of us.) which required to me to deal with angry people yelling at me about how they waited for hours, and it was a job that required me to be a leader of volunteers, something I'm not usually comfortable with but a challenge I took on and succeeded at.
One of these angry patients had a striking resemblance to Grizzly Adams and scared the crap out of me but I kept my cool as he was yelling at me. (Then he kept yelling at me and I called for help over the radio and he sat back down.) By the end of the weekend one of my teammates, Gun, (The nick name given to Megan Beretta.) even referred to me as Red Leader over the walkie talkies (something that I had jokingly requested of my teammates at the beginning of the weekend that everyone just kinda thought was silly, and it was.) The hours for the event were long, we started at 5 in the morning and ended at 7 or 8 in the evening (at no point during the day did I see the sun or go outside), but we got to stay in a nice hotel courtesy of IMOM, had our meals provided for us, and I even got a free teeth cleaning done in the process. (I can proudly say I no longer have any remaining dental glue from my days with braces.) Over all it was a great experience.

While I Was Out Part 11: Preservation Iowa, Waverly Iowa

Yep, almost two months after the fact and I'm still talking about AmeriCorps. Like I was saying before our round 3 was split into several short projects, the second of which was in the town of Waverly Iowa, quite possibly the friendliest town in America. Our job was working with the organization Preservation Iowa salvaging building materials from flood damaged homes caught in the 2008 floods. These houses were bought from their original owners by FEMA in hopes of demolishing the houses and using the property as community green spaces so that no future homes in those plots will get caught in any future floods. The building materials we salvaged from these homes were then sold in a community resale store and the profits were then used for Preservation Iowa's main mission in helping maintain historical homes withing the community of Waverly. The town was more than welcoming to us. (For the first week or so it felt like we were celebrities or something.)We stayed in the basement of Trinity United Methodist church. (Which was a lot better than it sounds.) The Church's Pastor, Pastor Deb, was also very nice to us and made sure we had dinner pretty much every night we were there, naturally we got invited to a lot of church pot lucks. We worked closely With the Mayor of Waverly Bob Brunkhorst and his wife Kris (the first lady? I'm not sure on the proper title is for a person in that position so I always called her Mrs. Mayor.) As for the picture when we were in Waverly it was right around Halloween so we tried to put on a Zombie walk to help collect winter clothes for Goodwill. The walk itself was more or less successful, My team ended up being the only ones walking as zombies or even showing up to the event due to an error in our advertising. We didn't include a date in our main flier. But the church managed to collect a great deal of winter items during their Sunday service for us so in the end our mission was accomplished.

While I Was Out Part 10: The City of Urbana Parks and Rec.

Our third round was split between several different projects the first of which was working for the City of Urbana Parks and Recreation. You probably haven't heard of Urbana Iowa, (Hell most of Iowa hasn't heard of Urbana Iowa.) but it's a little town about 15 minutes outside of Vinton. The Project: Help install a better drainage system for a playground that floods and stays flooded every time it rains. Solution: Dig out all of the wood chips already at the playground, put in a drainage pipe and then cover it all back up with nice soft sand. It was a big task, one which used heavy machinery (not operated by us.)and a lot of hard labor, but we got the job done. We worked on the playground for about a week, and on days that it was raining (which seemed to happen a lot that week.) we worked at the community skate rink (yes it was a nonprofit skate rink.) cleaning all the nasty off the skate's wheels, and there was a lot of nasty. To celebrate our completed work at the playground we did a relay race through the jungle gym.

While I Was Out Part 9: Greater Des Moines Habitat For Humanity

Hello Internet, it's been a while. Things have been a little hectic this last couple of weeks but I can now proudly say that I am an AmeriCorps Alumni and I'm back home in Cleveland. (WHOOOOH!) I'll get into the details about the closing week a little bit later but for now it's time to talk about Habitat. After our heroes of Maple One and Three were replace by Maple Two in Mississippi, the two teams returned to Vinton Iowa for a brief while and were then sent to separate locations to finish off the remainder of the second round. I can't honestly remember where Maple Three went, (it's really not keeping me up at night either.) but Maple One and myself were off to Des Moines Iowa to work with the Habitat for Humanity branch of the greater Des Moines area. Des Moines was surprisingly a very happening city. We were there during the late summer so we got to go to the local farmers market town which was amazing. We also checked out some stores and I got these really awesome jacket that makes me look bad ass. It's the most I've ever spent on a single article of clothing, (it costing $90.00 American) but Victoria and Andrea said that a jacket like that is an investment. One that I have yet to regret. Now, about the work.

and then we helped Habitat set up for their big event that year, The 2010 Blitz Build. The Blitz build was in 20 days building 10 houses, (2010 clever right?) and our job was doing all the prep work for it which included building and setting the frame work for the future homes and all sorts of cool things.It rained a lot when we were there which made our job hella hard moving those heavy mud frames and walls through the mud as we sank and almost fell every 5 or so minutes.
I got to use a jackhammer which as cool as it was, is actually a lot harder than it looks on television. We even got to see a couple of the houses that were finished being dedicated to the families which was pretty cool. Also one of the sponsors gave us all nicknames, mine was Magoo which, isn't terribly flattering, but it was cool that I got one never the less. When we got done with our time there it was already mid year. We'd get replaced by Maple 5 there after Midyear and they got to see the blitz build from start to finish and we got to go back for a day to see the final dedication of the ten houses.

While I Was Out Part 8: The Mississippi Commission for Volunteer Services/ BP Gulf Oil Spill Response

So the title for this one pretty much explains it all. Like I said earlier (see the ending of part 6) We left Toledo early to go directly to Mississippi to help in the relief efforts of the BP Oil spill in the Gulf Coast. Our team, along with Maple 3, had the job of working with the Mississippi Commission of volunteer services which was trickier than it sounds. You see the thing that people who weren't there didn't really get to hear about was that volunteers weren't allowed anywhere near the oil. This was because the future health risks to being exposed to the oil were unkown at the time so to avoid issues of liability only trained BP hired workers in what can only be described as haz-mat suites were allowed to handle the oil. Most of these workers that BP hired and trained were workers from the fishing and tourism industries who were displaced by the Oil Spill, so yes BP did mess up monumentally with this but they were making some effort to correct the situation. (Not playing the devil's advocate here, there was still a lot more they could have done.)So it was up to AmeriCorps NCCC to answer the hotline of the Volunteer Response Center (VRC) and respond to the e-mails of all those nice people who wanted to help clean up oil and do all the sexy jobs, (as one of the MCVS workers called it) and kindly tell them they couldn't and then tried to get them to commit to other volunteer opportunities that related to the oil spill.
So it was more office work with lots of spread sheets than hard labor which we all knew was a possibility but I don't think anyone was quite expecting it so early in the corps year. When we got there, there was only one such opportunity that the NCCC team we were there to relieve had set up and that was the coast watchers program. The Coast watchers were a group of volunteers who would walk the beaches of the coast that hadn't yet been effected by the spill and patrol it looking for signs of oil. The coast watchers would then report their findings to us and we then sent in all the reports to the higher ups so that they could then act accordingly.We worked with some pretty interesting people while in MS. There was Susan who was an incredibly sweet lady who ended every sentence in "well bess your heart." There was Mary, who wasn't mean, but everytime she came into our cafeteria turned office it was with bad news that made our job that much harder. There was also Elise who was the eyes and ears for the powers at be in DC. She was fun, and was familiar with the greater Cleveland area so we talked about that. There were three VRCs total that covered three different counties; my team (Maple One) covered the VRCs in Harrison and Jackson County and Maple Three had Hancock county. Our team came up with some more opportunities for volunteers to do including working with local humane societies to transport pets across states to facilities with available space. Now something like that doesn't sound like it would relate to the oil spill but actually humane societies had a huge influx of animals once workers in the fishing in tourism industries lost work and could no longer afford to keep there pets.
Maple One stayed at Camp Victor in Oceansprings, which was cool when it was just us staying there, but man when the large groups of middle school/high school age of volunteers were there it was so loud and obnoxious, with there singing and dancing, I swear that guy was playing the accordion just to spite me. This was also about when Naima left the team because of the baby. We were eventually relieved by Maple 2 which was when Blaze and I really hit it off. There are so many things I could say about Mississippi, it was hot, the work was often frustrated and short in supplies, but it was definitely a game changer.
A lot about me changed after that project, and it was certainly eventful. The short list being:
*found out I had gone 400 plus dollars into over draft (A problem which has since been corrected)
*Had a bit of a nervous break down
*let the other Avery shave my head forever purging my head of the remnants of my bleached locks.
*broke up with my high school girl friend
*read the final volume in the Scott Pilgrim series and then saw the movie.
*discovered the band Of Montreal
*started working on my Cheerleader comic Immaculate
*got the nickname "Amazing Chocolate bomb".
*painted a mural of Maple One as the New Mutants at Camp Victor
*had the world's greatest potato salad at the Shed

While I Was Out Part 7: Some Other Maples

Before I go further into my tale of excitement and adventure I'd like to introduce to you some more Corps members who I've been particularly close to and aren't on my team. First off there's Blaze Burton from Maple 2. Raised by hippies Blaze is 23 and one of a zillion children. He comes from Wausau, Wisconsin. Blaze is someone I always have a good time with, he's someone I don't think I would have made it through the Corps year without. Next is Autumn Last of Maple 3 who is one of the world's sweetest girls and incredibly affectionate. Autumn is one of the first people I met in the Crops, we both arrived late so the two of us as well as a third named Allie (also from Maple 3) went to the hospital for our routine physicals/drug screenings together. She and Blaze are pretty much best buddies
and on the dance floor those two are a sight to be seen. Autumn is 20 and from Beaverton Michigan. I absolutely love her name. Third is Gordo King age 21 of Maple 5 who is from Franklin Mass. Gordo is a real character with a story. Gordo isn't actually his real name, it's Nathan, I'm not sure why he goes by Gordo, I think his childhood friend came up with it, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact he shares an uncanny resemblance with the Gordo Character on the old Disney Channel show Lizzie Mcguire. (You should have seen him when he had his long curly hair he looks exactly like the TV Gordo.)
Gordo's got this very ambitious Bucket List that he's covering on a blog of his own, which is right here; gordoking.blogspot.com. So far his completed bucket list goals include, going to a roller derby game, getting tasered, eating at the Safe House, and walking backwards for a whole day. I wish him all the luck on completing it because it is long as Hell. Finally there is Mike Kamen age 23 of Maple 3 from Long Island New York. Kamen is the president of our corps class and probably one of the most active CMs you'll find. He's currently fronting this big event called Legendary Day that happening during our last week of service where we give back to the community and the braille school for having us. (I've done mural designs for the event.) We've pretty much adopted Kamen onto Maple One. Kamen is someone with a lot of confidence and very charismatic, he's the kind of person who doesn't seem to be afraid to do anything going to go places in life, he's taught me a thing or two about self esteem and confidence this year. He's also been known to give the girls on the unit massive hickey's despite being a homosexual but people love him for it.
(the hickeys that is, the whole love for his gayness goes without saying, so I'm not entirely sure as to why I'm saying it now.) Kamen's taking this particular pose because he does this in almost every picture, (I kid you not.) I'm grateful to call all these people my friends and everyone else in the Corps whom I haven't mentioned here.