Kellie - AmeriCorps

Last blog in AmeriCorps!

2009-07-30T09:31:00.001-07:00

So now that I am home, I thought that I would add the rest of my pictures from the last project. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to take any pictures of the kids at Operation Purple Camp, so I did not take any pictures of the camp.

Lauren and Charlotte- it took two people to get around this really big tree!

We did the Mile Incline in Manitou Springs, CO, which was really neat.

It took me two hours to get up...

The view was well worth it though!

You can even see Kansas!

Lydia, me, Lauren and KC at the top of the incline

We went to Red Rocks Ampitheater and saw Death Cab for Cutie. It was an amazing concert!

And this concert concludes my journeys in AmeriCorps. I am now starting to get ready for college in the fall and will be leaving August 27th to go up to Maine!

Back in Denver

2009-07-18T17:31:00.000-07:00

Now I am back from Operation Camp and am almost done with AmeriCorps- 5 days left! Now, I am just packing and getting ready to go home. I am taking the train back, so I will be back this Saturday and am totally excited!
Today, we did a service project, which included pulling invasive species all morning! It was hard work and the last project in AmeriCorps.

Operation Purple!

2009-05-30T22:43:00.000-07:00

For our last project, Fire Four is reunited and we will be going to Larkspur, CO tomorrow. We are working with Outer Edge Performance, which is an outdoor program, and one of the programs it runs is Operation Purple camp. We have had two weeks of training with the staff at OEP. The training was a lot of working on our skills and how we can be great leaders. We also learned a lot of fun games to play. At OP, we are working at a summer camp for kids whos parents have been deployed. This camp is there to provide a week away from their difficult lives, where the child may be taking on adult responsibilities with one parent gone. We, as AmeriCorps members and OEP staff have come together to be camp counselors for these kids. The first week of camp starts tomorrow- there are three weeks. The kids get to do fun activities, such as white water rafting, biking, horse-back riding, rock climbing and hiking. Then, there is a ten day teen leadership camp, which will be much of the same activities, except that the teens get to do a service project of their own after the camp is through.

Crown King

2009-05-25T14:02:00.000-07:00

So now that we are back from Crown King, I thought I would upload some pictures. But of course I ended up putting them online in backwards order of what really happened. So they start when we came back from Crown King and ends in the beginning! oops!!

the Boulder Tea House was imported from another country piece by piece to the US

Back in Colorado- at the Boulder Tea House with Julia and Becky

We went to Arches in Utah on our spike travel back to Denver
The other team who was with us in Crown King
Doug, Walker, Ruthie, Jen, Stephen, Charlotte, SJ and Lauren

Charlotte (my new team leader), Katie, Jen and me

Delicate arch

Trevor, Arden, Jack, Mike and Lauren

Double arch

this is called balanced rock, which I would say makes perfect sense!

wedding picture at Arches!

My squad and I were always in charge of making sure Rescue One was doing okay

looking out from our cabin

My team!
In back- me, Leia, Arden and Trevor
In front- Jack, Mike, Katie, Aubbi and Lauren

sunset at lookout point

Lauren, me, Aubbi and Arden in front of an old firetruck near the mine.

Arden, me, Lauren and Aubbi decided to see if we could make a shadow word

Arden, Aubbi and I went into a mine which was really cool.

Aubbi and me venturing into a mine

me, Aubbi and Arden

an old fire truck we found

Charlotte and Jack trying to fly a kite!

the trees are all burnt from the Lane Two fire last year

left to right- Lauren, Aubbi, me, Katie

a pretty lake at the top of the mountain in Crown King

Walker and Stephen at a great lookout at Red Rocks in Sedona.

the Red Rocks in Sedona

At the Grand Canyon- Luckily the next day it was nice and warm and we could see the canyon

Lookout tower

Looking out over the Grand Canyon

Doug is about to jump off the edge of the Grand Canyon!

There really was nothing to see because of the fog and man was it cold and snowy!

it was awesome to see nothing. It looked like the world ended at the edge

the Grand Canyon the night we first arrived

our wonderful nomex for work (yellow shirts and green pants) and complete with helmets, glasses, gloves and steel toe boots

the awesome bright yellow chipper where we chipped all of our cut brush. We ended up clearing 14.6 acres by the end of our time in Crown King!!

One day we decided to go for a hike and ended up at this rock, which looked like it was from the Lion King.

the kitchen in our cabin

There were four of us sleeping in the same room. Arden slept in the little room in the back.

Leia and I lucked out because we got the bed, while Lauren got the cot and Arden had a little closed in closet-like area

Crown King

2009-04-15T20:25:00.000-07:00

So far, we are having a lot of fun here in Crown King! We are being trained as firefighters! For the first couple of days, we took a general recruit class so that we knew what to expect and also some training on basic information. Then, we started to work in the field, which involved us cutting down lots and lots of brush from properties that requested the fire department's help. The reason we are cutting the brush down is because in the past, firefighters thought that all fires were bad and that they needed to stop all of them. The brush that needed to be cleaned out by the natural fires were not being cleaned anymore, so the forests were overgrown and had a high risk of fire.
The next training we had was medical training so we can be on call in an emergency. Then, we got trained to use chain saws, which is pretty cool!
Today, we were out in the field working and it was so cold that it was snowing!
We went to the Grand Canyon this past weekend over our four day spring break, which was a lot of fun. The second day we were there, it snowed all day and when we went to look at the canyon, there was fog and it looked like the world ended at the trees! We spent two days at the Grand Canyon and then went to Sedona, where we camped for our third night. Then we went to Jerome, where we went hiking in the Red Rocks.
We got our project choices for next round, which is pretty neat. A lot of them are in Texas and involve trail building, one is in Arkansas, one in New Mexico working at a native american reservation and a couple in Colorado, trail building. We got to pick our top choices but we will know where we are going when we get back to Denver next month.

2009-03-13T12:04:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are back in Denver! And we are getting ready to leave, this monday, for Arizona!!! It will be lots of fun! Everyone who went to Crown King last round have been telling us how much fun it is there! However, we will be traveling for three days so that we don't have to travel on the road to Crown King at night. Apparently it is not a very good road, even during the day. We are planning on going on a lot of hikes and maybe rock climbing and wading into a pond at the top of one of the mountains!

Arizona!

2009-02-26T14:07:00.000-08:00

Soon we are leaving Texas and going back to Denver. There we will debrief from this project and get ready for the next one. This round is a shuffle round, which means that we are switching teams and team leaders. It makes for a little excitement and means that we got assigned our project before we normally would. I am going to Crown King, Arizona to fight fires and live in the mountains about two and a half hours away from Phoenix. We are getting really excited to be leaving Texas and everyone is psyched for the next round!
We went to a Mardi Gras celebration in Port Aurthur last weekend, which apparently a quarter million people go to from Thursday to Sunday of parades. Tomorrow, we are going to work with Churches of Christ, who will give us a house to gut. This weekend, we are going to do a cleanup in Sabine Pass, which is definitely needed.

disaster in tx

2009-02-06T11:31:00.000-08:00

Today, we started a new project in Sabine Pass, which should be pretty interesting. We are going to buildings that were destroyed in the hurricanes and writing down all information we can about them and their exact location using a GPS. We will be doing this for the next couple of days and then moving on to Port Arthur.

These are pictures from when we went to Chambers County to check out the damage.

We even got to get super close to an alligator! Kimmy wanted to get even closer!

The tubes in the picture three from the bottom of the page used to be buried under the ground to protect the homes that were all along the beach from storms, but now it is about eight feet above ground.

These wires along the side of the road were never repaired and are still in the bushes.

FEMA

2009-01-27T18:05:00.000-08:00

We are working with FEMA as our sponsor. At first, there was a project for us that consisted of going out into the community and surveying houses damaged from the hurricanes. Lately, a few of us have been working with an organization called Churches of Christ, which helps people out with food donations, furniture and sheet rock delivery. It is a very good program and well worth being a part of. This past Thursday, we worked with a Texan to deliver sheet rock to homes that needed rebuilding. We delivered approximately 740 sheets to about 5 homes over the course of the day. Friday, Saturday and Monday, we worked in a house to gut it, which basically means taking out the drywall and everything in the house, leaving only the basic parts- the studs. We even got to rip out a wooden floor in the main room of the house. It was a lot of fun and we got to use sledgehammers to rip up floors.
Today, we wanted to work with the Army Corps of Engineers, but it turns out that he didn't have anything for us to do right now. We went out to lunch and got a tour of Oak Island, which is very destroyed by the hurricanes. Then we came back to the FEMA office and learned about Microsoft Access for a couple of hours.
A couple Saturdays ago, some of us went on a tour of Chambers County to see all of the damage and assess it. There is a lot of damage and it was really sad to look at. We got to drive up to the one house left standing in Gilchrist that was all over the news, which was kind of neat. We also got to see this alligator up close, which was pretty exciting!
On a lighter note, the people of Beaumont and surrounding areas are really nice people in general. They are very friendly and appreciative of what we are doing here. Although downtown Beaumont is pretty quiet, we have a movie theater next to our hotel and quite a few restaurants and stores, so we are doing pretty well activity wise. On Martin Luther King Day, my team and I went to a parade and then festivities afterward where MLK was praised.

Getting things done with FEMA in Beaumont Texas!

2009-01-14T18:17:00.000-08:00

So now that Christmas and New Years are over, I have gone back to Colorado and am in Texas now, I have survived the first day of working with FEMA! We are staying in an extended stay hotel. I am staying in a room with three other girls in a room, which should be interesting. We have to make our own meals, so we shopped for food tonight at the grocery store. It's really hard to budget food when there are ten people to shop for, including vegetarian food.
We had our first day in Beaumont Texas at the FEMA AFO today, which was interesting. We filled out a lot of paperwork but still don't know all of what we will be doing for the next two months. We will most likely be finding out tomorrow!
We have to get up at 6:30 so we can get up to work at 8:00. Our work days are Monday through Saturday- Monday through Friday 8:00 to 5:00 and Saturday is 8:00 to 12:00.

Last day in LA

2008-12-15T07:15:00.000-08:00

Sadly, I have reached the end of my time here in New Orleans and must begin packing and getting ready to move back to Denver. I have to admit that I am not looking forward to the trip back. Our van is a 12-seater and the 12th is half a seat in the way back of the van. The problem arises with our cargo van- they forgot about us and so now, last minute, we are sharing a truck with another team. We have to fit three people to a bench now the whole way back. Hopefully no one explodes. There will be tension in that van, that's for sure.

On a lighter note, we have been told that our next project will be somewhere in Texas, working with FEMA. We do not know yet where we will be staying, but at least we know the state!

It snowed last Thursday, and so I thought it would be appropriate to have some pictures of the craziness taking place in Louisiana. It was so amazing that we all jumped out of bed and rushed outside with our cameras.

It really was sticking to the cars!

Here is Jack saying, "What is going on?"

New Orleans

2008-12-09T18:51:00.000-08:00

Sadly, there is still a lot of damage here, and a lot of houses that are so damaged that they are going to be bulldozed soon. It is sad to look down a street and see that all of the houses are empty because they are uninhabitable.

The parking lot and the sign were part of a mall that is now completely empty.

These are some among the many destroyed houses I have seen that have not been cared for since the hurricane.

The real KaBoom Build

2008-12-09T18:39:00.000-08:00

The other weekend, my team and I did some ISP- building a playground in New Orleans. It was a lot of fun and we got to be pretty creative. The next day, we went back to the playground and took pictures of it without all of the people there. It looks amazing!

KC and I painted this pole! It says New Orleans spirling around the pole and LSU at the bottom with the S as the S in New Orleans too. Also it has the fleur de lis.
Some people got to paint this mural, which we all sat in front of and got a picture because it was pretty neat and very brightly colored.

KC and I got to put this sign together!

The finished playground!

KaBoom Build!

2008-12-09T18:38:00.001-08:00

football game!

2008-12-09T18:27:00.001-08:00

The football game was lots of fun, and of course, the Saints won!

The crowd was so big- there were almost no empty seats! We were the second to top row, but it was still a really fun experience.

I can't even believe that three years ago, people were evacuated into this building after Hurricane Katrina. It's hard to imagine people living there and the roof being torn off.

New Orleans

2008-12-05T07:24:00.000-08:00

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving, which was full of food at the community center, which one of the locals at Camp Hope cooked for everyone. Today is Pizza Friday, which means that we get out lots of tortillas and put sauce and toppings on top, cut them in quarters and serve them! It is a pretty easy day, and last week, we managed to watch two movies while making the pizzas.
We have put out a list of all of the food we have made over our month here and are having people vote on which meal was their favorite. The idea is to go out with a bang and to make the last week of food the very best we possibly can.
I can't believe that we have been here for almost a month now! As a team, we went to see Hurricane on the Bayou on IMAX last week, and Amanda Shaw was in the movie playing with her band. She was very good, and we wanted to see her play. My team leader Elizabeth, KC and I went to see her in concert on Friday in New Orleans. This weekend, we are going to see a New Orleans Saints vs Atlanta Falcons football game at the Superdome, which should be fun.
Some of my teammates have been seeing ghosts at night in our room, which is pretty freaky. The first incident was when KC and Sierra saw a bright flash of light from a camera that woke them up. Then KC saw someone standing at the end of her bed and when she looked away and back, the person was gone. Last night, Elizabeth said she saw someone standing at the end of her bed in a white tee-shirt, who bumped her bed. The weird part is that we went on a ghost tour a while ago and were taking pictures trying to find ghosts. Now it seems that the ghosts are coming back to find and take pictures of us!

New Orleans!

2008-11-16T19:54:00.000-08:00

So today, my team and I went to the French Quarter in New Orleans, which was lots of fun. There is a big flea market and a lot of shops and cafes along the roads. We have been visiting a lot of places around the city and also looking at the damage still present from Hurricane Katrina. It is very sad to see all of the houses that are still boarded up and uninhabitable even three years after the hurricane.
So on a happier note, our cooking is not going unnoticed by the volunteers and locals who eat at Camp Hope. Everyone is saying that our food is amazing and that we are the best AmeriCorps
team who has come to cook for them. So far, some of what we have made is chili, meat loaf or rice, beans and cheese for the vegetarians, and every Friday is pizza day. It is fun to cook for everyone, just the cleanup part is not so much fun! But we have a schedule down so that everybody gets their fair share of the fun part, which is serving the food instead of dishes!
There is one local who likes to take people on ghost tours of nearby buildings! He claims that the buildings are haunted and that if you take pictures, sometimes you can get ghosts to show up in your pictures. However, I have now been on the tour three times, and nobody has found anything strange in any of the pictures or even heard or seen a ghost! Hopefully by the time we leave, there will be at least one story because I am sure we will go looking again soon!

Halloween

2008-11-06T21:13:00.000-08:00

And finally, Halloween! There was a party the night before Halloween, which was fun. I was Hannah Montana because a girl in Walmart while we were here saw me and said, "Mommy look! It's Hannah Montana!" That was the first week, but ever since then, my plan was to be her for Halloween.

My friend Julia was Little Red Riding Hood.

2008-11-06T21:07:00.000-08:00

On the way here, there was not much along the road. Most of the highway in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas looked pretty much like fields with no trees whatsoever. When we got into Louisiana, there were some trees.

Louisiana

Also, I just had to take pictures of the price of gas in Kansas and Oklahoma. I felt as if I were going back in time!

Oklahoma

Kansas

My team!

2008-11-06T20:57:00.000-08:00

My team is pretty much amazing! We went to a park one of the first days as a permanent team for some bonding time. We really had lots of fun and were already psyched for our spike!

In this picture, you can actually see everyone. In the back, from left to right, there is Jack, Kimmy and me. In the middle, there is Kari, KC, Lauren and Sierra and in the front row, there is Becky and Stephen. Kari, KC, Kimmy and Sierra are in the morning crew and the rest of us work in the afternoon shift. The one bad thing about having two different crews is that we do not spend a lot of time with the morning crew, except for the weekends.

More!!

2008-11-06T20:47:00.001-08:00

Also on the hike there were lots of cute animals.

This chipmunk got a little snack!! He was so cute I had to get a picture of him!

YAY!!!

2008-11-06T20:27:00.000-08:00

So I am finally uploading pictures from forever ago. We are now in New Orleans, which is pretty awesome. We started work in the kitchen today- my shift is noon to 8:00- however, I feel that when we get the hang of the kitchen, we will be out of there before 8 because dinner is served from 5:30 to 6:30. We learned all about the kitchen and also that we will be getting to make anything we want starting this Monday for dinner! The breakfast crew has to get up at 4:30, so they are all asleep in the room now, getting ready for an early morning tomorrow! There are some pretty sad and intense stories people have here who lived in New Orleans during the storm. However, everyone has done a really good job of fixing it up and Saint Bernard Parish, which is the town we are in is looking pretty good now. Today, the dinner crew and I went on a run/walk to the state park nearby. We spent about 2 hours running and looking around at the park, which was pretty fun.

So first, I have pictures of hiking in the Rocky Mountains. It was so pretty and even though the day was really warm, there was snow on the ground. The sky was bright blue and the views were amazing.

New Orleans!!

2008-10-28T17:55:00.000-07:00

We found out our permanent teams on Friday and mine is amazing! We are going down to New Orleans and working at Camp Hope, which is a place that volunteers coming to work on disaster relief can stay. We are going to cook for all of the volunteers- there are two shifts- 4 am- 12 pm and 12 pm to 8 pm. Our team leader is going to change the shifts every week so that we get to know all of our teammates. We are working Monday to Friday and getting off the weekends which should be good. It also means that there is plenty of time for ISP, or Independent Learning Service, which is basically volunteering for hours. We all need to have 80 hours of ISP for the end of the year. Luckily, we will have lots of time off and will be able to easily do ISP. We are counting down the days now until we leave Monday morning. We can drive 8 hours per day and are staying in hotels Monday and Tuesday night. People who are the drivers for the team can only drive for 2 hours at a time, so we will be making many stops along the way!
We went to the air force academy yesterday, which was difficult because there was a lot of physical activity involved, which included having very good arm and upper body strength. There were some who were really good at this and others who could not do many of the activities because they didn't have the strength. It was overall a very fun day and also a good way to bond with the team.
I went to the Obama rally on Sunday, which was really fun. There was about a mile long line to get in to the park where it was and there were tons of people. There were snipers on the roof with huge guns, watching people the whole time.
I also have pictures of this but I forget my cord for the camera in my room, so next time!!

training!!

2008-10-21T17:41:00.000-07:00

So everything is going pretty well here... it feels like these past weeks are flying by. I am still training, getting ready to go on spike and going to many in-depth classes. Some of the classes are hard to remain awake for though! We had a training today on media representation- what to say if a reporter wants to interview you. We've also had classes on how to have a healthy living style, and how to handle different situations when they arise, all in preparation for going on spike.
We are going to find out who is on our permanent teams this Friday! I am starting to get a little nervous because those are the people I will be spending the rest of my ten months with. We will most likely be going down to the Gulf Coast. Many teams will be placed in Texas for Hurricane Ike work and a lot will be stationed in Louisiana for Hurricane Katrina.
I have heard that we are going hiking in the Rocky Mountains in a couple of days with my unit, so that should be pretty amazing. I am going to go to Boulder this weekend with some friends, so I will get to see some more of Colorado.

2008-10-09T18:03:00.000-07:00

Since I couldn't fit all of the pictures onto the same blog, here are more!!!

The rooms are really nice and pretty big. My roommate and I have a huge desk complete with drawers and shelves above it!!

We have our own sink, so that way there is no line in the bathrooms!

My roommate and I each have our own closet and pull out beds that are on wheels, so it is easy during the day to push the beds in and have more space in the middle of the room.

The buildings here on campus are so beautiful. The top one is the tower, which is really pretty.

The backpack is what we have to bring on spike (each project we go on). They're pretty awesome!!

the sites in Denver

2008-10-09T17:45:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I thought it would be fun to go outside and take pictures of the sunset because there's a really pretty view of the Rocky mountains and the town right in front of it. It's so amazing here... the computer lab is on floor four, and let me tell you- the walk up to the fourth floor is very tiring to get to because of the altitude, which also means that I am constantly thirsty!

packing

2008-10-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

It's harder to pack for 10 months than I thought! I just don't know how I will be able to fit this all into my suitcase... and... I already sent a box to Denver!

2008-09-25T16:59:00.000-07:00

2008-09-25T16:58:00.000-07:00