A temporary week with permanent memories

It wasn’t easy getting here. Fitting everything inside the duffel bag they sent was terrifying. One bag with one carry-on for 10 months, multiple seasons and unknown destinations is really hard to pack. Somehow I managed, but getting home is going to be another story because they gave us uniforms and I’m not sure how to make it fit without a shrinking spell! Travel day was a long one because my flight left at 6AM meaning I had to be up around 3AM to get out the door and at the airport early enough to get through security and wait forever (I'm finding that happens a lot here: hurry up and wait.) Upon arrival, we got our rooms and temporary teams (called pods), had time to settle in and pick up the odds and ends we didn’t bring with us and had a general dorm rules meeting. Us east coasters were exhausted, so we went to bed around 8PM here (don’t forget I gained 3 hours flying across time zones!)

Wednesday was quite busy: up at 6, classes all day, learning to be 10 minutes early to everything, a benefits/opportunity meeting, fittings for uniforms, an overview of what physical training is and so on. They’re keeping us busy but its necessary work so that we’ll be well oiled teams by the time we’re out in the field helping others.

Thursday was an even earlier day; we got to wake up at 5 to do our baseline physical training (PT) test. I managed 42 push-ups in 2 min, 63 sit-ups in 2 min, and a mile and a half run in 16:12. They’ll put us in categories based on ability and next Tuesday we’ll begin PT Mon-Thurs mornings. We had a van driving course in the morning and in the afternoon we only had a physical (drug and TB test) so our team leader, Susan, had us decide on a meal plan. We had $170 to spend on 4 days of meals. Three of us, Josh, Reese and I, were given the reins of dinner each night and that evening we shopped for everyone. We did quite well budgeting, even managing to sneak in a cookie purchase at the end!

Friday was quite interesting. We had an introduction to what it is we’ll probably be doing. Now, this can change (we’re taught to be FEMA flexible!) and nothing’s 100% official, but word on the street is that at least half of us will be headed to help with Hurricane Sandy relief. There are still 10,000 people without electricity and countless others with their lives and livelihoods in shambles. After that presentation I was intimidated by how much work there is, but oh so ready to get out there and help out. Also, the different job opportunities were explained and based upon our preferences and abilities, our permanent teams will be formed (we’ll get them this Tuesday.) In the afternoon we had seminars on how to deal with the media, details about our health plan and something else that’s written down somewhere. Lindsey (my roomate) and I managed to miss dinner by arriving 30 minutes after it started (we'd gone on a run) so they were nice enough to get us a Hot & Ready. Then, that evening, we had duty. We walked the grounds, cleaned common rooms and ensured that nobody was visibly intoxicated. What a long day, and I sure did sleep well!

On Saturday Lindsey and I had wanted to go on the organized trip to the Capitol. However, the spots had filled up quickly so we weren’t on the sign-up list. Luckily a few people who signed up decided they were too tired or whatever to go so we got to go anyways! It was great. Old Sacramento is straight out of a western movie (excluding the tourist shops) and the Capitol was quite stunning. We even managed to walk along the riverbank for some time. What a success!  

That evening, we had our first team dinner. The funniest thing was when Susan (our team leader) suggested we bring out the cookies we bought for dessert, only when the cookie container was brought out, half were eaten! At first we couldn’t figure out what happened, but one by one almost everyone owned up to having snacked on them throughout the day! After, we decided to watch this low-budget movie about AmeriCorps NCCC called I Didn’t Come Here to Die. It was a horror, and the ending was so bad it was funny but the team bonding was great.

It’s going to be really tough to leave these guys. We hadn’t even met a week ago, and now I don’t want to be separated from them. But if they hadn’t done these temporary pods, may I wouldn’t have ever met my pod-mates. Here's to a couple more days of good laughs and time off (we get President’s Day off) and then we’ll have our permanent teams. Until later!

P.S. My posting will be sporadic because I need a team leader in the computer lab when I’m using it and they’re quite busy. So please be patient!

Greetings

Hello!

          I suppose an introduction is in order since I’ll be posting on here for the next 10 months about my experiences with AmeriCorps. I’m 22, a Michigander, an avid reader, a recent college graduate (Biochem and French double major), a swimmer, a sufferer from migraines and extremely optimistic 99% of the time. I’m sure there’s more to me but that’s a start :)

          I’ll be headed off to Sacramento, CA next Tuesday where I’ll live for a month at McClellan Park (previously an air base) getting trained. After that, my group of 10-12 members will get sent off on a mission (they call it a spike) to help with disaster relief. We won’t know any details about our spike until right before we leave. Once we complete our duties of that first spike, we’ll return to Sacramento and get another assignment. We’ll have a minimum of 3 spikes throughout the 10 months of service. The AmeriCorps NCCC members are all aged 18-24 and relocate from their homes during the service opportunity. My program is specifically dedicated to disaster relief (it’s in conjunction with the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA].)

          Besides giving us the opportunity to help others and giving me the excuse to travel, AmeriCorps NCCC will pay for my room and food as well as a small living allowance. Additionally, contingent upon completing 1,700 service hours, I’ll receive an educational grant that I can use for graduate school up to 7 years from now (paying off student loans is also an option, but I escaped undergrad debt free.) I’d like to say thank you, U.S. government, for these wonderful benefits.

  One of the assumptions that people make when they hear I’m going to volunteer is that they think I was a college dropout or can’t find a job. However, neither of those is true; I graduated w/honors and was working in an internship that was challenging and rewarding with wonderful bosses who were working to keep me on for as long as possible. However, my heart’s desire is a career in Public Health where I’ll be able to help protect people from the toxins in our environment and discover better ways to help prevent disease. I've always loved helping others, whether it was simply helping do the dishes at home or volunteering to deliver food to home-bound senior citizens in Detroit, so I've known for a while that I want to spend the rest of my life serving others (but not in the “Would you like fries with that?” sense.) In order to pursue my dream of working in the Public Health field, I want this volunteer opportunity under my belt to help prepare myself for the needs of the public. There’s a lot of need that I’m currently ignorant of, and moving across the country to help others is a sure way to educate myself as well as show graduate schools that I’m very serious about helping others.

  I’m a little nervous about leaving my family and friends for such a long time; I commuted to college and have always lived at home except for when I studied abroad in Paris, France for 6 weeks (feel free to check out my blog about my travels in France: http://mesadventuresenfrance-hmgerr.blogspot.com, it's in English unlike the title, I promise.) But I'm even more excited for this grand adventure that awaits me, the friends that I will make and the people that I’ll be able to help. In four days I’ll be in sunny California instead of snowy Michigan. I’m so thrilled; it's like I’m holding my breath before I take the giant plunge!

Until later!