What…Where I am…What happened over the past ten months…I have to think about it more before I can write too much. Isaac has long hair. Ben has short hair. Katie is a vegetarian. Leo and Racquel have moved in together. Liz has a job working at Perry Point. Will is in college. Steve is riding his bike across the country. So many experiences, people, emotions… full update and reflection promised at a later date.
The first team dinner
The Final Banquet
Filed under Uncategorized
Good bye Maine
Mid-day last Friday, a call came to Katrina. It was the administration back at the Point. There was to be a change of plans. Instead of staying in Maine through the 4th of November, we would be leaving immediately to go to Broome County, NY, to help with flood disaster relief. We would have the weekend to pack up our things. Coincidentally, almost everyone on the team was off taking personal days, except two members, so most of the team had less than 12 hours to get the hell out of Maine.
Getting some spiedies at Sharkeys
We arrived Monday afternoon at Johnson City’s First Presbyterian Church. Everyone we have been working with has been extremely welcoming. Pastor Peak treated us to spiedies, a local delicacy, at the neighborhood hot spot, “Sharkey’s,” last evening, and we are having fun getting to know all the volunteers and staff. Even though Binghamton isn’t as picturesque as the coast of Maine, everything has worked out. The church also has a policy of “if you can find it, you can eat it,” which suits our glutinous tendencies. Additionally, the church is equipped with wireless, so we are able to research opportunities in order to make well-informed decisions about what we are going to do after AmeriCorps…
Hello Broome County
The house of B5
We have been spending the past week gutting houses that were damaged during the floods earlier this September. The flood damage affected almost 13,000 properties and the recovery phase is expected to take years. The houses we have been working on had severe damage, and had to be completely gutted. Currently, most of the relief work is being funded and organized by local church groups. The amount of community support is inspiring to see.
Gutted
Seven layers of floor
Hard day
Over the next week we will continue mucking and gutting around the triple cities.
Filed under Uncategorized
B5 spent the previous week working at the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge. Leo also returned to our team from his disaster project in North Dakota. We missed him!!!
Welcome Back LEO!!
Last week we planted native shrubs and aided in vegetation monitoring at Rachel Carson in efforts to create habitat for the New England Cottontail. Both the Reserve, and the Wildlife Refuge, have been taking efforts to encourage population growth of the Cottontail. The species of rabbit has declined over the past few decades and is currently threatened. There are approximately 300 Cottontails living in the protected lands of the Reserve and Refuge. We worked alongside the park workers, including ANOTHER Leo, who we deemed “Phoenix,” to keep him straight from OUR Leo. (Phoenix- in reference to the other Leo’s celebrity doppelganger, Joakin Phoenix.) This Leo, aka Phoenix, was also extremely goofy, so we assume it must be a train inherent to Leos.
Those goofy Leo's...
The shrubs we planted are suitable habitat for the native rabbit, and we monitored the density of vegetation and plant diversity in the area to study what is working to increase population. The Cottontail’s population decline of 86 percent in the last 50 years has been mostly due to habitat loss. Without shrub cover, it lacks safe havens from predators. We also spent a day sorting seeds for future germination, in hopes to increase the chance of a comeback for the Cottontail. Hopefully we were a beneficial force in the plight of New England’s only native rabbit…the Cottontail…!
Isaac, ready to go
Filed under Uncategorized
Our Street 
We have settled into our residence in Wells, Maine and have been enjoying the New England Fall. We live with five other house mates; all young people who are either going to school or working at the reserve. It’s nice having some fresh faces. The location of this project is wonderful. The woods and beach are right there, and absolutely georgeous. Portland, Maine and Portsmouth, NH are both about 30 minutes from our house, so we have had the chance to check out both cities. During our first week of work, we helped the staff and volunteers at the reserve get ready for their annual “Punkin Fiddle” fall celebration.
The Punkinfiddle, A National Estuaries Day Celebration, fosters stewardship of coastal environments by celebrating the richness of estuaries, Maine’s cultural traditions, and the beautiful historic site of the estuary. The festival features environmental education, artisan demonstrations, lively music, wholesome food, farm animals, and children’s activities. It was a fun day, and the highlights included some awesome live music, a woman who spun angora scarves out of a rabbit that sat on her lap, very photogenic alpaca’s and a 600 pound pumpkin.
October month B5 Calendar
Getting the Great Pumpkin
Isaac working the cider press
Alpaca!
Racqel face painting
Besides working in the beautiful, relaxing reserve each day, we have been volunteering at a soup kitchen in Portland. It has been a nice change of pace from the reserve, and we are all finding it fun and rewarding. Also Liz accepted a position as the Unit Support Team Leader next year with AmeriCorps, so she will be working in the administrative offices as Perry Point next year ordering around the new corps members! It will definitely be fun visiting her. The rest of us are still figuring out the more specific details of our lives… AFTER AMERICORPS…
Filed under Uncategorized
We drove to Maine on Saturday, after an all-day road trip. Wells, Maine is a small, coastal town. We are working at the Well’s Nature Reserve. Our housing is just outside the Reserve, and it’s awesome. There are nicely furnished dorm rooms for us to stay in and we share a kitchen, family room and living room with the other young people that live here and work in the park.
Huge
Kitchen
So far it’s absolutely beautiful. We start work on Wednesday. Until then, its time to relax and explore.
Filed under Uncategorized
All of the service projects over the weekend of September 11th went smoothly. On Sunday, the event culminated with a volunteer fair and guest speaker in Freedom Plaza in D.C. That morning we all left a 5:45 am. While it was still dark, we gathered all the supplies from the tool building, and then spent the morning setting up different stations for people to complete volunteer projects on, representing the various non-profit organizations. Some of the activities included packing bags for homeless veterans, making math puzzles for school children, painting a mural, etc. It was a beautiful, sunny day, in contrast to the entire week of rain prior. Besides a few minor mishaps… like when they police roped off a couple of blocks for an hour because our U haul van was reported as suspicious and had to get searched by the FBI… everything was a success!
Setting up in the early AM for the event
As any host knows, once the party is over and the guests go on their merry way, then the real work begins. Clean-up time. We spent all of last week driving around the the project sites, picking up all the supplies and then painsakingly putting them away in their right places in the enormous “tool chest,” an old school art room. All of us will be happy to never see that place again!
Supplies from the projects that we had to move and put away
After hours in the stuffy, sunless tool chest, you start to go a little nuts
Isaac in tool chest
We worked right up until Thursday evening, making one last delivery for a future project and unloading three tons of wood!
Our two weeks in DC was a great experience over all. A really unique aspect of AmeriCorps is that you not only get to travel to different locations, but by actually working within the communities, you get a richer, more in-depth look into the people and their way of life than if you just traveled as a tourist, or to visit.
On our second to last day of work, Katrina’s cell phone rang. It was call from our headquarter’s asking for Leandro Lopez to join a disaster composite team in in North Dakota!!! He will be deployed for three weeks and then join us in Maine. During this same week, we also inherited a new team member, who came from another AmeriCorps team in our unit. Andrew Proctor is from South Carolina, and is a pretty funny guy. He seems to fit right in with our colorful team.
Filed under Uncategorized
For the next two weeks, Buffalo 5 is working with HandsOn Greater D.C. Cares for their 9/11 National Day of Service Event. DC Cares has organized three days of service to commemorate the victims of September 11th. From Friday, the 9th, through Sunday, the 11th, the organization has set up almost 50 projects throughout the city and is engaging over 10,000 volunteers during the three days. They needed some extra hands setting everything up and running the different projects at all the varying locations, so Buffalo 5 stepped up to the plate!
Check out the event site! http://www.greaterdccares.org/HomePage/index.php/home.html
We arrived in D.C. Sunday and are being housed at the First Lutheran Church, a few blocks over from the National Mall. It is really close to everything and the church has very nice accommodations. We are staying in an empty room off of their fellowship hall that has about 40 vinyl mattresses in it and a bunch of shelves. Some of us have constructed our own dwellings as shelter out of the mattresses, so the room slightly resembles some sort of tribal, mattress-fort village. The church has five showers, a huge kitchen and wireless…so we’re all set!
After gallivanting around the city on Monday, we began work Tuesday, after Labor Day, with a project leader orientation with DC Cares at their main office. Then we went out to help the project managers get all of the supplies in order for each project location. DC Cares stores their tools and various other supplies in a storage wing of an old elementary school in DC. It’s rather decrepit. Due to the ambitious nature of this marathon volunteer weekend, the staff at Greater DC were really appreciative of our effort, and hopefully we will relieve some of their stress. There were a lot of logistical details that had to be sorted out for the event, and all of the three project managers in charge are new to the organization. It was slightly hectic, but pretty much everything got done… we think…
After spending a very long day arranging the supplies for each project and making sure they were complete with water bottles and granola bars, we packed up the U hauls.
We were cruising
We spent the last two days delivering all the materials to the sites. We drove ALL over the city in our U hauls and got to pretend we were professional movers for two days. I may or may not have been singing this song in my head the entire two days…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqy9mqv48Vg.
Some of the deliveries included dozens of bags of soil and mulch, bricks, and building materials, so Buffalo 5 got to show off our muscles. As luck would have it, there happened to be non-stop pouring rain during those 48 hours. However, by 8:30 PM on Thursday, after two days of rain, heavy lifting, getting lost, tracking down project sponsors, narrowly avoiding accidents (with one minor exception), and driving through DC traffic, pretty much everything got delivered…we think…
Either way, today was the kick-off and the first day of the service projects! Our team was divided among different projects and we all headed out to our various locations this morning. Leo and I walked a few blocks down the street to a local elementary school to work on the school’s garden. The first service day was structured for corporate volunteers, so we had groups coming in from different companies. Our project had over 100 corporate volunteers signed up. Luckily, the rain held off for the morning, just until the volunteers arrived. So even though it started to pour a few minutes into the project, we already had them in our grasps! Actually, all the volunteers were troopers and the gripes were mostly good-natured.
Not their typical day at the office
Considering they usually spend their time in front of a computer, it was understandable that there was a little whining over getting completely drenched and covered in mud at 9:30 in the morning. Needless to say, Leo and I, being seasoned AmeriCorps members, had no qualms over getting our hands a little dirty and being soaked down to our drawers.
Smiles- rain or shine!
Soiled
garden glove residue
The day was a success, and I think all of the volunteers got something out of it. The rest of our group also enjoyed their projects and had good things to report.
One day down, two to go.
Leo and I with Hands On DC Cares staff
Filed under Uncategorized
After a long ride we finally made it back to the point, just in time for Hurricane Irene! We drove all day from Vermont to Perry Point, Md. With our frequent bathroom breaks it was a rather long trip. The boys instituted a four max bathroom allowance rule, and after that you have to wear an adult diaper. Either way we made it home with no accidents! Once we arrived, we had to get debriefed on the storm in case the weather turned severe. As far as I can tell it was nothing more than a bunch of rain, and we all survived. After this week of transition events we will be working in D.C. helping to set up for a huge volunteer day that takes place on 9/11. And then we are heading back up north again…this time further! To Wells, Maine!
Filed under Uncategorized
On Thursday, our last day working in Vermont, we returned to work at Helen Porter Hospital. Racquel, Leo and I first helped the maintenance staff, Andy and Bob, grill up some hot dogs for the residents. They were seriously good hot dogs, none of that Oscar Meyer stuff.
Chef Extraordinaires
After, we helped out with a carnival they were having for the residents. They had a bunch of games and activities set up for the seniors to win prizes. First everything was set up outside, but the threat of rain caused us to relocate into a multi-purpose room. So we wheeled them all in.
Ready for the carnival, before the wind started picking up...
Singing "Ole Susanna"
She won a prize!
Dress up- compliments of Katie and Racquel
Playing ski-ball for a prize
It was a new experience for us. A staff member told us to just wheel them up and get them involved in the games, but just grabbing someone’s chair and pushing them up is rather an uncomfortable thing. Some people couldn’t hear, and some people were not that enthusiastic. Either way, we got used to it, and after initially feeling slightly uncomfortable, we all ended up enjoying ourselves. There was also a station where you could dress up and get your picture taken. That was fun.
B5 and friends
Mac dressed to impress
After the activities subsided, I talked with a friendly resident named Mac for awhile. I had met him the day before, and he is one of those old men that is always smiling, with a loud and cheerful demeanor. We started talking and he explained that he was originally from Connecticut, and got a degree in English from Yale. After serving in the Navy, he and his wife opened The Mountain School in Vermont. Still in existence, the website has a page on the history of the school which explains how Mac and his wife founded the school, in 1962, with a focus on environmental sustainability. http://www.mountainschool.org/podium/default.aspx?t=104853
I noticed throughout the conversation that he really had to dig through his mind to pull out details, but he was very much engaged in our discourse.
Recounting the days
I also noticed the electronic band around his ankle. He seemed upset when he couldn’t remember the name of this ship he served on in the navy. ’U.S.S…” he kept repeating, but it never came. I asked him about his wife and he closed his eyes and his tone changed. She was beautiful, he said. Doris, D-O-R-I-S, he spelled out slowly.
Resting
We got back to cleaning up and Mac announced he was going to sit outside and watch the rain. He walked himself forward in his wheel chair and looked out at the rain from under the entry way to the garden.
The staff was giving us an overview of the services of the hospital when he wheeled himself back in. As he crossed the room, I could hear him making low moaning noises. I excused myself and easily caught up to him in the hallway. Bending down to his chair, I said “Hi Mac, I just wanted to say I loved talking with you today and wanted to give you a hug, incase I don’t see you before I leave.” I reached down to give him a hug and was met with an embrace that was stronger than I had expected. “Thank you,” he said suddenly happy and smiling again. “I had so much fun today.”
Later on our tour of the hospital, we entered into the memory loss unit. I saw him there, sitting in the common room, with his hand on his head.
Mac looking daper
Filed under Uncategorized
A Weekend of Rest and Relaxation
After our holiday in New Hampshire, at Isaac’s House, Buffalo Five returned to finish up our work in Vermont.
We spent the majority of our week working in Middlebury, at Helen Porter Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center. www.helenporter.org. We were all very impressed with the facilities at the Hospital, and it was clear that the administration makes an effort to give the facility a homey feel. They have a beautiful garden area, and grow some of their own vegetables for their cafeteria. They also organize lots of events, keeping the residents active.
The garden area at Helen Porter
Taken from their website : “At Helen Porter, we’re concerned about the total person, about emotional and spiritual needs as well as physical care. Each resident is considered an important member of the larger community. Recently, Helen Porter undertook Culture Change, the foundation of which is based on transforming Helen Porter into a true home.”
We worked with their three man maintenance crew of Al, Bob, and Andy. It was a pleasure to work with them.
Bob and Andy-jacks of all trades!
Even though their main job duties consist of maintaining and repairing the grounds and buildings, they also demonstrated a strong belief in the mission of the hospital. Their jobs often overlapped with interacting with the seniors and helping with events. It was clear everyone on the staff intimately knew all the residents. It was a unique working environment, because in a lot of ways there was a family-like relationship between the staff and residents.
Al, with the cat that lives in the Memory Loss Unit
We helped out washing the outside of the building, and working on their nature path.
When we left after the first day, the director’s final comments to us were to look into getting a job in healthcare, because it really helps people and is very rewarding. That really struck me. We have worked with so many organizations this past year, and it was one of the few times someone has directly advised us to work in that field.
Filed under Uncategorized
