Absolutely Devastating

So my team was sent on disaster call to Tuscaloosa, Alabama. We were all soooo excited to hear that. This is definitely going to be an amazing experience, for sure. We are going to be setting up warehouses for all of the donations they are getting. We also may be doing some cleanup and removal.

We have so many concerns, however. How am I going to react to the people's stories? What if I find a body while doing cleanup? Am I emotionally stable enough for this?

We went into the town to register as volunteers today. We did a quick tour of part of the destruction. There is one area that we passed that you KNOW there were buildings and homes some point. But not...its nothing. None of those homes are standing. It's just a pile of rubble. I couldn't believe it. A few of us cried. And I mean I cried for a while.

Seeing something like this makes you think about everything in your life. I can't even put myself in their situation. They lost everything and people that they cared about. I realized that a lot of us take a lot of things for granted. Maybe we should start living our lives differently.

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Hey Blog...Long time no write!

Ahhhh! It's been craaaazy. And I just keep forgetting to update. My bad. So we ended our first round. It was...alright. I enjoyed the work a lot, buuut our sponsor (who shall not be named at this time) was a jerk! It was really hard for all of us to work with him. Now about our project.

We worked at 3 different girl scout camps (technically 4). Camp Todd for 2/3 weeks and Camp Grove Point for 3ish weeks. We also visited Camp Sandy Pines and Camp Country Center (I think) for a day or two.  It was hard work, but we could definitely see a difference. Some of the projects we did; painting (and lots of it), roofing (shingling and repairing), cleaning, stocking the cabins, repairing cabins, spraying insecticide (and getting slight chemical burn on my face...yay!), put up tents, brush/invasive species removal, cleared trails, built an adventure trail and all of the exercise stations to go along with it, and much more! We also got to kayaking fairly often. Even though we didn't have the best sponsor, we had a great time.

Other major events from Round 1: Physical therapy for my back, Jared leaving to go to the military, Bethany's concussion, saving a stink bug from the paint, having Ranger Ed come into the picture, gaining Terrell back (and now losing him...again) and sooo much more.

Now I'm in West Milford, NJ for our second project. We are at Camp Vacamas, which is a camp for underprivileged youth. The sponsors and everyone else we work with are amazing and truly inspiring. We are pretty much doing the same work here as we did at the Girl Scout camps.  But this time...it seems a lot easier. The scenery is gorgeous. We are up in the mountains and pretty close to NYC. The weather is absolutely wonderful too.

I couldn't be happier with life right now. I think this is one of the best experiences of my life and I'm so glad I decided to do it. I'll try to post more often...but I make no promises!