Make and Difference Day (and Other Old News)

We got back from Mendo on Friday and the next day was Make A Difference Day! Every AmeriCorps contingent (not even just NCCC. Literally every AmeriCorps member) observes Make A Difference Day. The Sacramento campus spread out and went to community gardens and trails for fuel reduction and beautification. Silvers 5 and 4 were sent to Northridge Elementary School in Fair Oaks, a short drive from our campus. We met our awesome sponsor, Missy Benke, who welcomed us with baked goods! The weather took an unfortunate turn in the afternoon, but we still got a lot done. Our teams actually exceeded Missy's expectations and we were able to pull out a bunch of weeds from the back of the school and restore

In NCCC we're told to keep track of everything we do (called “quantifiables”) because people (read: congresspeople) like it that way. I also like numerical sums of our activities so here are the quantifiables for our day at Northridge:

34 tree roots dug

500 sq. feet of grass dug out

22 transplants

1 ton of vegetation removed

50 snails saved! (pic on facebook soon)

8 holes filled (we filled holes because kids were tripping on them)

4 shovels snapped

1 rake snapped

2 pairs of work boots damaged

Missy was very appreciative and cannot wait to start planting in the new garden area we cleared for her! She really likes experiential learning and will enjoy using the garden to teach her students not only about biology, but math, chemistry, and nutrition. She has put us up on the wiki she set up for her garden project, which you can read about and view here! Despite the rain that day we accomplished a lot, and really enjoyed working with Missy.

After our long day at Northridge our team leader, Jeff, took Silver 5 out to dinner! As we suspected, Jeff used this opportunity to reveal where we would be going for our first round project – Portland, Oregon! We'll technically be living in Gresham, but it's only a short metro ride into Portland proper. Our team will be working with Habitat for Humanity Tuesdays through Saturdays starting on November 6^th. Each person on Silver 5 will be leading a group of volunteers by the end of our orientation period, which is incredibly exciting! We'll be collectively trying to finish 8 houses by Christmas which is a pretty significant amount of work. Unfortunately, we won't be doing any of the heavy-duty “from the ground up” kind of construction, but we'll be doing a lot of smaller projects such as installing doors and working on cabinetry. I'm really excited for that though because these skills are easily transferable to, ya know, the rest of my life!

The nine of us will be living in a two-bedroom apartment upstairs from a Habitat office, which will prove interesting. The good news is that we'll have access to a kitchen, laundry, and wireless! That, and hopefully I can obtain a bike in Portland seeing as how it is THE MOST bike-friendly city in the U.S. right now. How I'll get it back to Sacramento is a bridge I'll cross when I come to it.