SSP Stockton

Nearly 300 volunteers will be working in Stockton this summer with Sierra Service Project. Follow this blog to see what they are doing and learning!

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Stockton Week 6, Friday

Note: Kathy Sanders-Platnick is a counselor from Rolling Hills UMC and is writing daily emails to the parents of her youth while in Stockton this week. She has shared these emails to be posted by SSP.

Today was a very busy, very hot work day--but it was extremely productive.  All of the teams finished their work projects and, in fact, we finished all of the work projects for Stockton (which means the staff won't have to finish them after we leave).  Everyone felt an enormous sense of accomplishment, including the work team who stayed back at the church and helped with counting all of the tools and materials as well as many items in the kitchen. Our theme today echoed the theme for the week, to Speak Up.  During our morning program we listened to a Ted talk about everyday leadership being demonstrated not just through the obvious (such as Nelson Mandela) but through the little, kind things that people sometimes do that have a transformative effect on people's lives.  The speaker referred to these as lollipop moments.  You can hear the entire talk at http://www.ted.com/talks/drew_dudley_everyday_leadership. Throughout the rest of the day we discussed and considered people who have made an impact in our own lives through their small but kind gestures.    Tonight in lieu of the traditional candling in which everyone sits in a circle and takes turns talking about their week, we did a new program.  We sat in a large circle, facing outward with our eyes closed.  Some of our group were selected to go to the center and then the Spiritual Life Coordinator read out affirming statements and gave the participants a chance to touch someone  who exemplified that trait.  An example would be "Touch someone you respect."  After about 6-7 statements, the participants were changed so that ultimately everyone had a chance to touch and be touched. We began packing up tonight for the drive home tomorrow.  We hope to be on the road tomorrow by 9:30 with a short stop at the Boggs Tract Community Farm so that our youth who didn't work there this week can see what produced so much of our fabulous produce this week. We have had an amazing week.  Each of the counselors feels so blessed to have had a chance to spend this week with your young adults making a difference in the lives of the Stockton community.

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Stockton Week 6, Friday

  Today was our final day at the site. We got way past any of our previous expectations. It felt very good to do so much work for such a good cause. Also, the head honcho of VHB came and gave us a plaque expressing their gratitude towards the work we had been doing. It was a rewarding day.

- LAVOS

Today we finished the house!!!!!!! It looks amazing. Everybody was amazed. The staffers thought that they were going to have to come and finish the house, but we finished it. We are all very happy with the outcome and sad that SSP has to come to an end.

- The Teenage Mutant Ninja Painters

We counted and counted for the entire day. We counted tools and screws and hooks and wires and anything you can imagine. After an extended lunch with a trip to the store to buy ice, we came back to help do the endless amount of dishes and cleanup the cooks had to do. So concludes the amazing legends of strike thrust.

- Strike thrust  

Today we were amazed by the generosity of our homeowners!  We finished up a pink fence at a woman named Artemiza’s house, and she and her three year old daughter served us tamales that they had made.  They were super delicious, and after finishing them we went to Jerry’s house to knock out his old fence.  It was grueling but fun, and Jerry even came to help us out and gave us some sausages.  Overall, it was a great work day!              

- Friendly Flying Fencers

  Today was bittersweet. Even though our team finished our project we are still very sad to leave Rick’s farm. It was so important to us to work on this farm because we helped so many people just through the act of picking fruit. Although I am a strong believer that no person should be awake before 6 am but harvesting at 6am at the farm truly benefited the lives in the community. Without our help, Rick would have spent much time putting together beautiful boxes of fruit, while we got it done in under two hours.

- FARM TEAM

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Stockton Week 6, Thursday

Note: Kathy Sanders-Platnick is a counselor from Rolling Hills UMC and is writing daily emails to the parents of her youth while in Stockton this week. She has shared these emails to be posted by SSP.

Thursday is always a special day at SSP as we begin to finish up projects and look forward to the evening Spiritual Walk.  Today was no exception. Our theme for the day was "Finding your voice"  Many of the youth attended today's spiritual awakening (which is voluntary but starts at 7:15 am).  Our focus today was on composing haiku poems that we then wrote in sidewalk chalk in the parking lot.  There were many great ones, but one of my favorites was:  "I want the passion  Anger with perseverance  I will change the WORLD" After a yummy breakfast of french toast casserole, turkey sausage and fruit we headed off to our worksites.  There was a  bit of a shuffle on worksites today as we raced to finish all of  the projects by Friday.  Despite the mid-90s heat, every work team reported a busy, fruitful day.  One counselor shared that the homeowner at the house her team was painting shared how meaningful our work had been.  This homeowner used to take significant pride in her home but over the last year or so had suffered a lot of losses and had let her house go downhill.  After watching the peeling, unsightly paint come off to be replaced by a beautiful coat of fresh paint, she reported feeling that watching her house was starting to come back to life gave her hope that she would start coming back to life. Dinner tonight was fabulous pizza, which is usually a Friday night tradition. I'm told that the church folks are cooking for us tomorrow evening.  Yum.  After dinner we departed for University of the Pacific across the street from the church.  There we embarked on our spiritual walk where we visited five stations.  Among the activities was a meditative conversation with God, writing affirmations to each of our teammates, participating in an exercise that shows how life experiences scatter us and take us apart from each other but speaking out or participating in activities like SSP can unite us.  The last activity involved focusing on how our doubts about ourselves or our weaknesses can sink us but all of our strengths rise to the surface. It was a late night tonight so everyone fell asleep pretty quickly.  We are incredibly blessed to have such a wonderful group of youth and amazing adults on this trip.  The kids have chastised the adults for being our own "clique."  It may be true, but it is only because we are having such a great time talking to each other.  The kids, on the other had, have mostly dissipated their typical cliques for this trip and are hanging out with a variety of peers.  All of the counselors are taking particular pride in how special their team is. Amen to all of that. Kathy

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Stockton Week 6, Wednesday

Today we went and cleaned an area called “The Slough.” My group talked about the fact that if we didn’t meet a local of Stockton, named Jordan, who told us his story of how rough it was growing up in Stockton, it wouldn’t have meant as much cleaning up. After that we went to a delta and had a lot of fun swimming.

- Teenage Mutant Ninja Painters

Instead of painting the ROHCC today we picked up the Mormon Slough. It was dirty and dangerous work but it was also very rewarding. To know that we were cleaning up the homes of the less fortunate that others do not respect felt good. Afterwards we had a water day.

- Cherry Mike and Ike’s: Samantha, Scott, Dylan, Connor, Jocelynn, Hayley

  Today we were enlightened in such an amazing way.  We got to clean up a slump, which was more than just the average “clean up”.  As we picked up the slump we found bible verses, children’s toys, pictures, and clothing. Each object we found gave each of our team members a different thought. I found a broken picture frame and I instantly wondered what picture formerly belonged in it. We got a chance to emerge ourselves in the lifestyle that the homeless experience. 

- Farm team Cheyenne

  Instead of working on the fence today, we went and cleaned the slough.  The slough is an area where many homeless people and other people often dump their trash.  It was really an eye-opening an experience because we’ve been staying in a nicer area of Stockton, and the slough, which was a bad area, was very close to that area.  Our team discussed how that is very similar to L.A., some areas are very nice, and you can travel maybe three miles and be in an area that’s completely different.  I thought that was a very interesting observation, and relating this area to our own was valuable.

- Fearless Flying Fencers: Ranger, Katie, Shannon, Alex, Harry

  Today, we went and worked in a not so nice area of Stockton. We were picking up trash. I found it a very enlightening experience. For the first time in my life, I saw pipes and needles. Of course I knew about drugs, but I had never seen the real deal. Also, there were a few homeless encampments and it showed me how homeless in these areas made something out of nothing.

- LAVOS: John, Kade, Abigail, Carter, Gracie, Emily, Bryan, James, Sara, Ethan, Claire, Kathleen

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Stockton Week 6, Tuesday

Today we discussed discernment and how it acts as an individuals personality builder. Discernment to us, are the values we believe in. Todd, our councilor brought up a great point. He asked, “What do you believe the difference between a priority and a value is?” We couldn’t think of anything. Then Todd explained that a priority changes from one moment to the next.,, but a value is such a strong belief that is almost indented into your personality.

Additionally, I asked each person in our group to come up with a quote that they VALUE , and briefly express why.

Nathanial spoke about this quote, “The hand of friendship has no color.” He expressed that often he has been judged based on the color of his skin rather than his personality which in certain situations had a affected him.

Todd then stated, “Judge a man not by the color of his skin, but the content of his character,” which then prompted a discussion about how each of us have seem judged based on our actions or looks rather than our character. I (Cheyenne) decided to tell me group how I have been judged based on past actions and that with that I’ve learned to speak up. I speak up because who I am today is the character I SHOULD be judge on, not the actions other have heard about. This is why WE speak up. WE speak up for those who CAN’T, and we speak up because WE ALL deserves to be heard.

- Farm team DAY TWO!

An important part of the day was learning the difference between judging and discerning.  Our group discussed how judging was a quick thing, whereas discerning is used after time and getting to know a person.  We also discussed ways to reduce letting quick judgements influence the way we interact with others.  While we were staining the boards to build the fence, many of us were talking to each other,  getting to know each other, and really discerning.  Some of the observations made from getting to know a person over time, are really different from the things you might judge about a person initially.

- Fearless Flying Fencers: Katie, Harry, Alex, Shannon, Ranger

  Today, we painted once again. Our spiritual sandwhich was about discernment. We  learned that discernment is making a decision with facts and love. Discernment is a form of judgement, but a positive judgement.

And now a quote from Scott: Hot roofs and small cracks.

 - The Cherry Mike and Ike’s:  Samantha, Scott, Dylan,  Connor, Mykayla, Jocelynn

Today we finished painting the front of a house(almost). At our spiritual sandwich discussion we talked about how discernment ties into judgment and speaking up. We have also have a lot of fun doing it.

- The Teenage Mutant Ninja Painter

Today we did 3 different projects. We painted a singular board in the church parking lot. We then went to a very depressing home where we repaired holes in walls with the help of some of the 9 children who lived there. Despite the cockroaches on the wall, it was a nice home. We then went to a small field with corn where we added chicken wire to the bottom of a fence with the help of a friendly local farmer. We then proceeded to come home and shower early. 

- Strike Thrust

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Stockton Week 6, Monday

Having the second highest crime rate of any city in CA, I was nervous when we first got to our site. I was thinking “Everyone here is a criminal I’m going to die AHH!”. Though some parts of the block were a bit sketchy, the area wasn’t all that bad, fitting right in with this week’s theme, make fair judgments. I made some judgements beforehand instead of judging the area fairly.

- LAVOS: John, Abigail, Kathleen, Sara, Kade, Claire, Bryan, Emily, James, Carter, Gracie, Eathon

Today in Spiritual sandwich, we talked about judgement and the ways in which we see people from the outside without getting to know them. We dove into the subject and went through all the ways we seem to judge eachother and how prejudice stems from insecurity and fear of being an outsider. Also, it takes courage to speak up in situations where someone else is being judged and speaking up on their behalf may not help you out but it will mean a lot to them.

- Teenage mutant ninja painters: Megan, Steven, julian, zoe, taylor, Ryan, Edwin, cody, doug, Rebecca, Natalie, and jenna

  One of the main themes of today was judgement, and how not to judge.  Upon entering our site, there were many assumptions about the community one could make, because it’s not a very nice neighbourhod.  However, the man who lived at the house we were working on, Jerry, was really nice and gave us lots of plums he picked from his tree.  It was nice talking to him, and it demonstrated how snap judgements are often untrue.

- Friendly Flying Fences: Harry, Katie, Shannon, Ranger, Alex

  Today we worked on Rock of Hope Christian Church and on our judgement. We painted and painted and painted. Scott led us in a spiritual sandwhich about judging and how to avoid judging others negatively. We also talked about what kind of judging is good judging.

And now a quote from Scott: Its not about the wall, its about filling in the cracks.

 - Cherry Mike and Ike’s: Samantha, Scott, Dylan, Connor, Jocelynn, Hayley, Mike, Sherry

  Today we heavily discussed judgment and how important it is to judge based on character rather than judging based on the appearance or past revelations. Often we are judged without prior knowledge of a person or an event, creating tension.

Our group has promised that we will attempt to forget judgment before meeting or while meeting someone and focus and be IN THE MOMENT! Our group, and our generation will be the revolution that changes the world.

- Farm group

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Stockton Week 6, Wednesday

What an amazing day we have had in Stockton.  Instead of heading to our work sites we spent the morning picking up trash at the Mormon Slough.  Jay Jordan, our cultural speaker from last night, showed us the way and told us a bit about the area.  The slough is a popular dwelling site  for the homeless.  There are numerous shantys throughout the slough--and boatloads of trash.  Apparently this is a popular dumping ground.  As Jay said, how does Stockton treat its poorest citizens?  It dumps trash on them.  Even though SSP had cleaned the same area the prior week, it was filled with new trash.  In 90 minutes, we were able to fill an entire truck with trash.  You can hear a bit more about the slough from this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyW5-4Z8Q5E The experience had quite an impact on our youth.  The team that presented the evening devotional centered their program on the slough.  One youth shared the story of meeting Sonia, one of the slough residents.  When he approached Sonia to see if he could help clean up some of the trash surrounding her encampment, he found her sweeping the area immediately in front of it.  The devotional team youth chose the song "God Bless the Grass," and told us we should think of the word "grass" as "homeless" when we sang the song.  I encourage you to read the lyrics as they make a powerful statement when sung with this substitution.  You can find the lyrics at  http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/MALVINA/mr053.htm. Our theme for the day was listening.  We began the day listening to the sounds around us.  We listened to the sounds of Stockton while cleaning up trash.  And tonight we played a great game where half our team could see one blindfolded member, but could only make hand gestures to the other half of the team who were responsible for yelling out directions to the blindfolded person but couldn't see him or her.  The goal was to direct them to a piece of fabric to pick up.  It was both fun and challenging. We spent the afternoon at the Threemile Slough in the Brannan Island State Recreation Area. Since it was in the mid-90s today and we all got hot and dirty picking up trash, virtually everyone hit the water.  The swimming area was fantastic, although filled with seaweed.  The kids played football, frisbee and dump seaweed on each other games in the water all afternoon.  We had BBQ burgers and dogs at the park, then headed back to home base for our evening program. We had early lights out tonight as the sun and water drained most (but certainly not all) of the energy today. Tomorrow we are back to our regular worksites as we head into the last half of our trip.

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Stockton Week 6, Tuesday

Note: Kathy Sanders-Platnick is a counselor from Rolling Hills UMC and is writing daily emails to the parents of her youth while in Stockton this week. She has shared these emails to be posted by SSP.

Tuesday was another great day for Stockton SSP.  Our weather remained temperate due in part to the rainstorm that greeted our day. Thank you God.

  Our Theme of the Day was Discernment based on Philippians 1:9-10.  We spent a lot of time considering what discernment means and how it differs from judgment.  Jay Jordon was the cultural speaker for our program tonight.  He told an inspirational story about making bad choices and ending up in a gang only to turn things around and become a recognized and awarded community organizer and leader.  Many of the youth raved about his words of wisdom, claiming it was the best cultural program they had ever heard.  You can read more about Jay and his work here:  http://first50.wix.com/thefirstfifty#!jerron-jordan/mainPage.

  The Strike Force team proudly finished off three different projects today.  The Visionary Home Builders team primed and painted the upstairs living quarters of the house on which they are working.  You can read more about VHB at visionaryhomebuilders.org.  The Rock of Hope City Church team is ahead of schedule in painting the outside of the church; the kids have become masters at taping off windows.  The Jerry's Fence team are nearly finished with the fence they are building and should be able to start demolition on the old fence when work recommences on Thursday.  The Boggs Tract Community Farm team arose at 5:45 to be at the farm by 6:30 for one of the two weekly harvests.  As you might expect, the team spent some time sleeping off their early start this afternoon.  The Linda's House team finished another day of chipping, scraping and painting.

  Food today was great as always.  Breakfast was a choice of oatmeal, hard boiled eggs, or one of three breads:  zucchini, banana or yam.  Dinner was taco/burrito bar.  I forgot to mention on Monday that we also had an extra special treat when Carter's Grandmother graced us with ice cream bars (yum)!  Most of the teams also had a site visit today from the Spiritual Life Coordinator, who brought cookies and good cheer.

  Tomorrow we spend the morning as a group cleaning up trash in the Stockton slough and then head off to a nearby state recreation area for the afternoon water day.

Kathy

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Note: Kathy Sanders-Platnick is a counselor from Rolling Hills UMC and is writing daily emails to the parents of her youth while in Stockton this week. She has shared these emails to be posted by SSP.

Stockton Week 6, Monday

We had a terrific first work day.  We all knew that the weather would be the big story and it is.  Today we had phenomenal weather in the 60s for most of the work day.  Even tonight the sleeping quarters are quite bearable. Our overall theme this summer is Speak Up based on Proverbs 31:8.  The sub-theme today was about judging others.  We did several exercises in which we considered ways in which we judge others based on outward appearance and things about us that others might use to judge us.  Tonight we talked about how we might temper our judgements and actually start from the premise of acceptance. All work sites reported terrific workdays.  Undoubtedly the weather helped.  We have three large painting projects, a community farm project, a fencing project, and a strike team roaming from site to site to help finish up projects.  We are also keenly aware of safety concerns.  Most of the projects are in areas that resemble some of the communities within just a few miles of the church, but there is one project in a more run down area.  There were two teams there today and they had a chance to observe from a safe distance and behind two locked gates some non-violent criminal activity that is typical in areas like this.  The groups were completely safe; the counselors discussed the issues with the youth.  It was really an excellent learning experience for those present. Breakfast today was pancakes and sausage.  Dinner was spaghetti, amazing green salad, bread and fruit.  Please pray for another great weather day tomorrow!

Love the picture of the Angels watching over our babies while they are sleeping at night.

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Note: Kathy Sanders-Platnick is a counselor from Rolling Hills UMC and is writing daily emails to the parents of her youth while in Stockton this week. She has shared these emails to be posted by SSP.

Stockton Week 6, Sunday

The first caravan arrived in Stockton around 2:15 with the last pulling in around 3:15.  We were also joined today by our last remaining camper who came via air but was escorted to Stockton by two generous souls from Elk Grove UMC.  We immediately set up our living community for the week.  We are housed in a large fellowship hall at Central UMC across the street from University of the Pacific.  The building mirrors the sanctuary, both of which were built 50 years ago.  The architecture is unusual and phenomenal.  We'll  try to send photos, but you can get some idea of the structure by going to http://cumcstockton.org/weddings/our-facility. We are compensating for the beauty with the heat.  It is hot, hot, hot.  Did I say hot?  We have two huge fans but will close the doors at night to prevent evening wanderers from joining us.  Otherwise, there are no safety concerns where we are staying. After playing some games and eating a terrific chili, baked potato and luscious green salad dinner, we learned our new work teams.  There are six teams ranging in size from 7 to around 12.  The projects include lots of painting, some fence building, a community garden and working on a community home.  Everyone is excited, getting along well and having a blast.  We are looking forward to our first work day tomorrow. Blessings,

Kathy

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Stockton, Week 5 - Friday

It’s been such a rewarding week at SSP! Our group finished basically almost half of Linda’s house and when she came out at the end of the day and told us how much it had made her life better, we couldn’t help but smile and thank her for helping us grow as a group.

- Walls, Flip-Flops, and Sweaty Socks

Today we got to the work cite and we were set to get the fence finished. The only problem was we had 118 boards to both stain and put on the wall. With perseverance we got 60 boarded up and are exactly 1/3 of the way. The team next week will have a breeze. So happy to have such an amazing group who is so driven!!!

- Robs fab 5

Cody enjoys long walks on the beach, dance parties on the regular, playing with Pokémon, eating anything with ketchup, wrestling, listening to tunes, drinking sugar, and painting at SSP.

Sven enjoys long walks on the beach, being the one who scribbled all this stuff down, playing random fun board games, making nachos, making fun of Rachael’s Accent, blowing up watermelons and painting at SSP.

WHAT A GREAT WEEK IT HAS BEEN AT SSP STOCKON FOR THE GROUP CHANGING COLORS!

- Changing Colors

To wrap up our week we ended up harvesting, rearranging the shade structure, and weeding.  We got to say our final goodbyes to the farm staff and spend our last minutes playing contact with the whole team.

- Fancy Farmers

Today, we awoke at the bright hour of 5:45 and we yet again went to the farm and harvested vegetables and fruits.

After we made a huge amount of progress of weeding. Our work was very #FAFF

- The Fabulous, Fantastic, Amazing, Farmers (FAFF)

Septet Fortissimo: Pastor Drew - male, late thirties, pastor at Hope UMC, happily married with two kids and a side bae named Siri. Enjoys comic book collecting and driving around in a black van filled with Mountain Dew and candy.

Kyle - male, late teens, student at Palomar Community College, in a long standing and solidly monogamous relationship with his first love…science. Enjoys attending school and watching the Big Bang Theory often…very often.

Emma - female, mid teens, student at Patrick Henry High, relationship status is unknown. Enjoys competitive cheer in San Diego and making amazingly funny faces at everyone at the worksite.

Cameron - male, mid teens, student at Patrick Henry High, in a love/hate relationship with peanut butter sandwiches. Enjoys playing water polo, living dangerously, and blaming Bailey for everything on the worksite.

Bailey - female, mid teens, student at Rancho Bernardo High, in a perfect relationship with Dave Thomas founder of Wendy’s. Enjoys  being her twin Gregor and singing during long car rides for entertainment…to herself.

Drew - male, late teens, student at Central Catholic High, in a committed relationship with Winceton the spider. Enjoys playing lacrosse, sleeping, and blaming Bailey for issues on the work site.

Veronica - female, late teens, student at PLNU, in a long lasting relationship with Ben and Jerrys with a main bae at home and a few side bae’s. Enjoys singing ALL the time, making people smile, and annoying her side baes to the point where they throw her in the pool.

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Sierra Service Project youth volunteer in Stockton

High School students from around the west coast are volunteering to clean up parts of Stockton with Sierra Service Project.

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Stockton Tuesday, Week 5

After an early start at 5:45, we did the first harvest of the week. We got to talk and get to know some of the locals that work on the farm.  We even ran into a ex-NFL player and it was super rad. We weeded and we got muddy building our mud wall.

- The Fabulous, Fantastic, Amazing, Farmers (FAFF)

Today we woke up at 5:30 AM to harvest the fruit from Boggs Tract Community Farm. The variety of fruit ranged from strawberries to jalapenos. While scouring the cucumber vines we happened to run into a 2 foot long, 6 inch circumference English cucumber. Our group, of course decide to make the giant cucumber our mascot of the fancy farmers.

- The Fancy Famers

The result of a full day of paint stripping and priming two sides at the Rock Of Hope Christian Church is the newest in SSP Stockton tattoos.

- Septet Fortissimo

We started the day off through bonding to “Beautiful Day” by U2 on the way to the worksite. While we waited for Jake to bring us the concrete mix we finished our holes. We were very determined to mix and pour the concrete into all 9 holes and because of we were so driven we finished 2 hours faster then expected. We ended the day by singing at the top of our lungs “You belong with me" by T-Swizzle.

- Rob's Fab Five

Although we had a few troubles with the construction process today, we kept our strength through our perseverance and courage, we were able to push through, and are prepared for the days to come this week! SPEAK UP!

- On the Fence

“Hot and Tedious, If you’re one of us then scrape with us.” ( sing to Ke$ha’s We R Who We R ). We basically made up fantastic parodies to old songs and FINALLY started priming!

- Walls, Flip flops, and Sweaty Socks

Laneà Lane enjoys long walks on the beach, running away from a man trying to buy the house, eating lunch in creepy basements, The Company of Drew, cool speeches, and scraping paint at SSP Stockon.

- Changing Colors

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Volunteers working hard to clean up the Mormon Slough in downtown Stockton!

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Stockton Monday, Week 5

Cheryl, a hard working team leader who is not afraid to get her hands dirty in any situation she is thrown in. She’s also pretty funny, which is also a good skill to have. SPEAK UP!

- On the Fence

It's great being around people who you’ve never met, but its really fun getting to know them. We looked past other peoples looks and decided to speak up and start conversations with new people!

- Walls, Flipflops, and Sweaty Socks

Today in work groups we had a fun time getting to know each other. Gregor and Zosia bonded by digging two holes in the group for our fence posts #count’em. It was funny when Margaret had to trim a tree because she was really into it and it helped us get motivated. At the end of the day we got 9 holes completed, with the help of “On the Fence”, who we were really thankful for.  Overall we had a very productive day.

- Rob's Fab 5

We embraced our inter-primate as we threw mud to build a wall. We visited the chicken coop, put up some posted, and most importantly got to know our team! #FAFF

-The Fabulous, Fantastic, Awesome, Farmers (FAFF)

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Community speaker and local activist Jay Jordan speaks to volunteers during Week 4. Mr. Jordan uses his past as a cautionary tale for youth and is now an extremely vital figure in the Stockton community. 

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Ashlynn, Courtney, Lars, Noah, Robert, and Kyle- The Benchwarmers

The Benchwarmers’ last day at SSP was great. For the first half of the day we followed Jake around to various jobs and were deemed SSP Special Ops. Afterwards, we helped the Gardeneers with the last part of their mud wall, even though it was brutally hot. For dinner we had amazing curry; probably the best meal of the whole week. Afterwards we passed a candle around and told how our experience at SSP has influenced us. We will definitely carry on our lessons we’ve learned to the rest of the world and will never forget this week at SSP.

  Coco, Ben, Kevin, Quinn, Nate, Grace

The last day of SSP for our group was awesome. We got to work with 3 other groups on one house. We got so much done! We were able to do the second coat of eggshell on all three rooms on the walls. And we got to do the first coat of super white on the trim. We just need to do the second coat of super white on the trim. I can’t wait to see the finish product.

Jacob, Hil, Audrey, Marco, John, Linda- The Green Machine

The Green Machine certainly had an eventful final day. We started off by touching up the paint job. We finished that in two hours. After that, we went to our second job where we arrived at the second workstation to be greeted by a cheery but talkative lady.