Documenting the Greener AmeriLife

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Delta 1 deploys to Wiggins, MS tomorrow to start two weeks of training to be Girl Scout camp counselors! 

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Delta 1 made it safely to Hampton, VA earlier this week! So far we have been in training, but later next week we will begin our project of helping Virginia end veteran homelessness.

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Definitely going to miss Monticello more than I have any other community in more than a year with AmeriCorps. It's been long weekend of goodbyes but Delta 1 is finally on the road to Virginia.

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Rounded out the week with a boat tour of the Pearl River!! It's been a pretty sweet week. More details to come. :D

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Wonderful weekend of bluegrass concerts, pizza parties, Walking Dead, Southern Baptist churches, and community meals! It's safe to say I've never been more attached to a community I've served in with AmeriCorps. Mississippi gets a bad rap and certainly not everyone here is perfect, but it's definitely called the Hospitality State for a reason. Delta 1 has one more week here, and we'll try to get as much done as we can for these wonderful people.

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Tours around town with the Mayor all day! Jonathan, the Delta Unit Leader, and April, the Assistant Program Director for this project, came by for a site visit. The Region is based in Vicksburg which is only about 2 hours away. It was really nice to see faces from the "outside world" even if it has only been 1.5 weeks. We went out to lunch at the deli at Ramey's. Toured Atlas, EVM, a catfish processing place?, and around Silver Creek. (Jonathan and April and I did not go to the catfish place.) We all learned a lot today and it was great to meet new people and and see old ones. We also stopped by the fire department for a bit to see how it looks with all the office stuff put back in, so we hung out with Justin and Donnie for a bit. Then we went to the Lawrence County Press office and got free copies of this week's newspaper, which features us on the front page. All in all a good day!

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First day of actual work on the river walk! We got a lot done today and we all learned so much. There was more standing around time than I normally would have liked, but it was probably a good thing because it was in the 80s and none of us are accustomed to physical labor in the heat yet. We also didn't get quite enough hours in; we stopped at 3pm because we ran out of supplies. :( I'm starting to be concerned about it because we didn't reach 45 hours last week and it's looking like we're not going to this week either.

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Awesome weekend rounded out by catfish and hush puppies for dinner on Sunday! The volunteer firemen and their families are really starting to grow on us. Monday was slightly disappointing, it was a beautiful day outside but our only two possible site supervisors for our actual project were either sick or running urgent errands in Jackson. So we ended up painting at Coopers Ferry again. Although it was nice to be able to put some finishing touches on it to make it look just that much better.

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Finished up our first week yesterday by replacing the ceiling tiles at the fire station and installing a new floor! The fire fighters here are such great people and were very grateful for our help.

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Another rainy day, another day spent painting! This time we painted the fire department office! It went a lot more smoothly today than it has been going. We were all in one room the whole time and I actually made a game plan and taught everybody some tips/tricks first and we all ended up much happier. Also the fire chief is an amazing dude. He let us all try on his fire suit and he came by after work to teach us some CrossFit moves! It was awesome! Looking forward to more rain tomorrow and another day at the fire station. :)

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It's been a rainy few days! Project work has been delayed. In the meantime Delta 1 has been painting the inside of a public facilities building at Coopers Ferry Park. Before and after shots to come!

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Today Delta 1 went grocery shopping, hung out at the library, and walked around town. We talked to a pretty cool state representative, learned what a "yellow dog Democrat" is, and ate some doughnuts at Donut Time.

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Arrived in Monticello yesterday a little after noon! We had a brief orientation at city hall and were introduced to our main points of contact for the next three weeks. Then the mayor took us out to lunch at a BBQ place, we had a tool/safety orientation, dropped our stuff off at our housing, and finally toured our project areas around town. At about 4 we came back to our housing at Atwood Water Park and hung out until dinner time. We decided to go out to Jay's (aka The Cougar Cafe) because they had all-you-can-eat steak or catfish for $13 and we hadn't used any of our travel fund yet. We happened to run into the mayor there of course, and he ended up paying $40 towards our meal! I was so confused when I got to the cash register and watched our waitress put in every meal and drink and then tell me the total was $47! Spent the rest of the night learning how to play a card game Jess calls "Pounce." Pretty good start to our first project.

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Briefings!

Delta 1 presented a briefing for each of our first round projects today.   

Project #1:  Town of Monticello

Sponsored by the Mayor, we will be staying in Mississippi for 3 weeks to build a river walk and beautify the downtown area. 

Project #2:   Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness

The VCEH's primary initiative is to end veteran homelessness by the end of 2015. Delta 1 will be doing outreach to help the VCEH achieve this goal.  We will be working out of the HELP Center in Hampton, VA.  

More details to come on the communities/organizations we'll be working with, as I find the free time. 

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Starting this blog a bit late in the year but this is generally going to be about my adventures as a Team Leader with AmeriCorps NCCC at the Southern Region campus.  Enjoy, friends!