Turkey Break!

Colin and myself

River 5, 3, 1, and 6

River 5 in NOLA!

Huuuuuge Train

Where River 7 is from

Honeybee's

Ribbon cutting

KaBoom finished

Train next to River

JMU volunteer Alyssa

JMU volunteer Kelley

JMU volunteer Lindsey

JMU volunteer Chelsea

JMU volunteer Misty

JMU volunteers at work!

My first Po-Boy

NOLA/Solar Panel

NOLA XMAS

French Quarter

As always, had an awesome time with River 5 coming to NOLA for a short weekend.  After catching up Saturday night we spent Sunday walking around downtown on a beautiful day (and some saw some monster trucks along the way).

Prior to their arrival Saturday was spent at another Kaboom build where about 300 volunteers showed up.  Clearly by now we are pretty pro at these Kaboom builds as we have 2 under our belt...  Instead of art easels and chalkboards we constructed a slide this time (and by construct I mean bolt together plastic).  After securely adjusting the bolts accordingly and confirming the safety of our future generations I was able to converse with fellow volunteers from Teach for America and City Group who were working in the area.

Monday I worked with 5 JMU volunteers (Go Dukes!) and impressed them with my knowledge and love for their school which I described as my "college away from college" after visiting friends there so frequently.  We painted as per usual which continued into Tuesday.  One more day at this work site and it should be completed (hopefully).

I'm pretty excited to be seeing my family tomorrow for Thanksgiving break.  Although it won't be long enough it is a much needed break and I will be able to see my twin sis, parents, grandparents, aunt and uncle, cousins, and many more people I dearly love!

Special Thanks to Jim Jim Coningsby the Executive Director of PNOLA for driving me to the airport at the absurd hour of 4am making my travel accommodations possible.

Oh and sorry Ma I did buy a Bree's Jersey... I don't want to hear it after Eli's performance against Philly!

KaBoom!

Start of the KaBoom Build

Tulane Volunteer Drilling

Beautiful day to build a playground

My team completes making an art easel!

Some painting and bench building action going on

Playground and other fun stuff being built

Last piece, the dome

Finito!

Cutting the ribbon ceremony

Kaboom!

What 4.50 gets me every week

Start of another Kaboom...

Precutting wood for build day

Using Solar power instead of a generator for our power tools

Pretty awesome getting to see this daily

As you can see the Kaboom build from last weekend went very well.  Great turnout, great weather, great food, what more can you ask for?  I ran a team of 5 volunteers (4 were Tulane students) and overall we constructed 4 art easels and one movable chalkboard. My team (River 7) worked from 6am to 5pm achieving an impressive 11 hours of ISP's in a single day.

Less than a week later and we are doing yet another Kaboom build this weekend.  Thursday we prepped the wood and building materials for Saturdays build day.  Last week I was the "Red Power Ranger" team and this week I get to be Dora the Explorer. Dios Mio! At any rate, I will be building players benches (like the ones in a dugout) with my volunteers which I can only hope are as awesome as last weeks volunteers. Speaking of which here's a video of those very volunteers dancing:

Weeks have been flying by as per usual, and my friends from River 5 are renting a car and visiting NOLA from Ocean Springs which I'm pretty pumped about. The weekend is bound to end before it begins, and on Monday we have a volunteer group from James Madison University coming to work with PNOLA.  I gotta hand it to them, missing thanksgiving to come volunteer in NOLA is pretty generous... Myself on the other hand will be heading to Virginia to spend turkey day with my family!

How is it still 80 mid November?

New Orleans Sculpture Garden

Next to a house we're painting

House we painted, walls and ceilings

Gallon Challenge!

Mary Louise

Reverend Ann

Dewitt

St James Church Group Volunteers!

Trim we painted

Pantry and trim painted

Kari showing off her quartering skills around the trim

Much to be done!

Outside the house to the left
7th District NOLA

Across the street
7th District NOLA

To the right
7th District NOLA

Kaboom build!

Reminds me of the Disney movie "Holes"

Friday at last.  Another week has whizzed by and there was a lot accomplished this week. First and foremost we had a group of church volunteers from St James Church in Richmond Virginia come work with us this week which was pretty nice of them!  Also awesome because I was able to become a site supervisor for PNOLA and run my own team of volunteers painting for the week.  As you can see I had 3 volunteers out of the 7 that arrived, Dewitt, Mary Louise, and Ann who were all super friendly.  We painted everyday this week they were here and they were "painted out" as they phrased it by the end of the week.

The top picture is where my team volunteered last weekend doing an ISP at the sculpture garden picking up trash and keeping the area clean.  We have been blessed with amazing weather this entire time as today hit around 80 again and was mostly sunny!

The "Gallon challenge" is a game that Will and I play everyday when we work to encourage each other to stay hydrated we see who can polish off a gallon of water first.  So far Will has been slacking and although does complete a gallon a day, does not complete it in time before I do.  Even when we are not working together I will send him a picture message of my progress throughout the day to keep the gallon challenge alive!!

The Kaboom build is an ISP we did today instead of working with PNOLA, and which we will do tomorrow as well (6am leave time ouch!). Basically a Kaboom build is setting up a playground for kids at a park, or school or wherever.  For us it is at an elementary school and we will be leading local volunteers tomorrow  to setup a full playground throughout the day.  Should be fun and I'm looking forward to catching up on ISP hours as I've only done about 20 before this spike!

I know I've been slacking with the blog, I'll try to keep it to 2 times a week however there is so much more to do in New Orleans than in Mobile Alabama!! And finally I'm able to go to the gym on a regular basis which is keeping me sane (also which means I don't have to run anymore!).