The End

My employment with ASP ended a week ago today, and it has been strange adjusting to the "real world" again- taking showers every day, wearing something other than a t-shirt and jeans, and living away from my staff; people I lived and worked with for the whole summer. We finished all of our projects right on time and ended up working on a total of 15 homes. We surpassed our homes figure of 13, which was the number of homes we were required to work on over the course of the summer. We completed our room addition; our fundraising efforts over the summer made this possible. We had enough RCD (restricted county donations) to have money leftover and contribute it to the ASP General Fund. Our volunteers for our last week (Week 8) were a group of helping hands. This means they were adults who love ASP and come to help with whatever is needed. These helping hands were from the same church as Norma Dean, the longest serving ASP volunteer. One of them had volunteered in 1971, just 2 years after ASP was founded and he had met Tex Evans (the founder). We finished our summer with a few days in our county to sign off homes, run dump, clean/pack our center and say goodbye to all of the families. From there we traveled to Johnson City for unload day where we unloaded all of our tools and kitchen equipment. We were one of the first staffs to arrive, so we spent the day helping everyone else to unload their vehicles. From there, we headed back to Jonesville for wrap-up. We had completed almost all of our paperwork already so wrap-up was very relaxing. We had plenty of free time to catch up with friends from other staffs and play lots of euchre. After a few days and our decommissioning service, we left the porch and headed home. I would like to be on staff again next summer, but it depends on how my classes work out and if I have to take summer school. I'll definitely apply and we'll see where it goes from there!

Carpet..

So far I have focused on mostly generic happenings from my summer. But this time I think I'll switch it up a little and talk about one of our interesting adventures from the week. We ordered special maroon carpet for one of our homes about 2 weeks ago, but instead of ordering it from Lowes, we ordered it from a local carpet store. Lowes had a leftover carpet that was the perfect color that they were going to give us for $50, but the bureaucracy that is Lowes wouldn't allow us to buy the carpet since it somehow wasn't in the system. So we compared prices and decided it would be cheaper to order the carpet from this local shop. Also, as part of ASP's mission we try to buy local as much as possible in order to support the communities we live in during the summer. We ordered the carpet are were told that the carpet would come in last Thursday. As the days went by we stopped by the carpet store everyday, but everyday we were told that the carpet hadn't arrived yet, but it should be arriving shortly. After several days of this, at staff meeting one night we decided that we should ask for a discount since they carpet was so much later than promised. However this was much easier said than done. The woman that works there is the sweetest old lady, and after all it really wasn't her fault that it hadn't been delivered- it was the fault of the supply chain and she was just the messenger. So when the carpet finally came in a whole week later than promised, we just couldn't bring ourselves to yell at the little old lady to get our discount. We delivered the carpet out to the worksite, and they began the installation. I happened to be the one going out to this house the next day for runs, that Friday. As I arrived and was standing on the brand new carpet, marveling at how good it looked the volunteers started telling me about how they couldn't stain the base board since the previous group hadn't put the top on the stain and it was dried out. They then proceeded to hand me the can, so that I would be able to match the color when I went to the hardware store. What I didn't realize when they handed me the can was that is was dripping. All over the brand new carpet. As I stood there, chatting away. Fortunately, someone finally realized what was happening. I threw away the quart of stain and then looked down in horror at the 2 new stains on that formerly flawless carpet. As soon as Ms. Alice (the homeowner) saw this she wasn't flustered or angry at all. She simply told me "that'll be alright, I'll just put a scatter rug over it." However, I still felt awful and had no idea how to get oil-based stain out of carpet. So I drove furiously to the carpet store to ask advice. After the carpet lady consulted one of the men who works there, she determined that paint thinner would be the best thing for the job. I quickly bought some, and raced back to the house. I tested it out on a scrap of carpet, and it worked fine so I proceeded to use it on the stain. After several long minutes of scrubbing, the stain was completely gone. I'm not quite sure what the point of the anecdote was other than to share this random event that would never happen anywhere else except working for ASP. And to explain that I never thought I could ever care so much about a carpet as I did about that one. Finally, it was to show how gracious all of our homeowners are, Ms. Alice as the prime example.

Mid-Week 5

Our Week 4 went really well, but as it gets later in the summer I am starting to get more and more tired. I had my sleep in day today, so that helped a lot. We get one day off and one sleep-in day every two weeks, so I'll have to figure out what I'm doing for my day off next week. Last week I got to meet Shelby in Yadkinville (where her Dad, Step-mom and brother- Ryder live). Our Week 4 groups were from Chapin, SC- outside of Columbia and Berwyn, PA- outside of Philly. As the weeks go by, it's really interesting to see how different each group is. For example the group from South Carolina was very loud and energetic, while the groups this week are very quiet, we sometimes even forget they are here. Another thing I have noticed is how different the Group Leaders are, even within the same church. Some want a lot of instruction and guidance and others just want to do things their own way, whether or not it agrees with the way you told them. There also is a big difference in the speed some groups complete projects compared with others. Something that surprised me about being on staff is that it isn't always a good thing when a group works really quickly. Sometimes this is really helpful, like with our room addition we are trying to complete by the end of the summer, but other times when a group moves quickly it becomes much more difficult to stay within our homes budget. One way that we make up for this is RC money. RC stands for restricted county, or money that gets donated that is for use solely in Johnson County. Our ice cream eating contest is our main fundraiser, and how we earn most of our RC. However, our room addition is very expensive; as are some of the projects we have worked on so far- roofs in particular and so far our fundraising has not closed that gap. If anyone would like to donate money to our county to help us complete our projects for the summer it can be mailed to:

ASP Johnson County Center

General Delivery

Trade, TN 37691

P.S. The picture at the top is me getting pied at the end of Week 3

Begining of Week 4!

Week 3 was an amazing but stressful week. Sunday was especially crazy since we had to meet our volunteers at a park in Mountain City instead of our center and we held our GL meeting, dinner, and EG there. We started our Sunday night home visits much later than usual, but we finally had everyone settled back into the center. Our groups this week were from Wilmington, NC and New Jersey. The groups from Wilmington loved to cook for their families, something I had never experienced in my years of volunteering. I was fed every single day with something delicious including peach cobbler, biscuts, barbeque chicken, macaroni, and eastern style bbq pork. For fundraising this week we decided to add on to our weekly ice cream eating contest with the opportunity to pie staffers in the face for $200. George, one of the GLs, talked to me all week about all of the gross things he was going to add into my pie; lard, hot sauce, and spoilt milk were just a few of the ingredients. On Wednesday night, my fellow staffers as well as some GLs conspired to take me and a few other youth on a snipe hunt. Fortunately for me, the family at the house where the hunt was to take place was asleep. Our picnic went well on Thursday, but it was a little more work than usual since Jacob took his day off that day. As the operations coordinator one of his main responsibilities is the picnic, so it was a learning experience for all of us finding out how much work goes into it. After everyone has finished eating, I glanced over at one of the tables where a peach cobbler had magically appeared. Ms. Marie had brought some to share, and I was one of the lucky few able to get a bite :) As the week came to a close, I started to realize that we were finishing up on a few of our homes. This was a sad realization for me that I would no longer be able to see the families that I had gotten to know and love on a regular basis. On Friday, my parents arrived for a visit. I took them on runs on Friday so that they were able to see what my job is like. After dinner that day, Jen informed me that I was the only staffer that a pie had been paid for. I later discovered that my parents were the ones that had paid for it, and the other church hadn't even been planning on buying one for me; they had just been teasing me the whole week. Luckily, the pie wasn't quite as disgusting as George had threatened, but I am still smelling peanut butter 4 days later. We were all sad to see these volunteers leave, but our moods were lifted Saturday afternoon when we discovered we had been approved for a room addition. Torey and Jen had worked on the application all night Thursday night, pricing out every single detail of the construction of the new rooms. The family had already had someone build the continuous foundation, so we wouldn't have to start from the very beginning. Although getting approval was a great first step, we still will have to work very hard in order to finish before the end of the summer. The other difficulty will be raising the funds to complete the room addition, because it is much more expensive than our usual construction projects. For the rest of our Saturday we decided to have some 4th of July fun- first we went to a swimming hole near Boone, followed by a cookout and fireworks at our Construction Consultant, Red's house. Finally we went back to our center and had a bonfire and s'mores with our neighboring county, Carter. Our new group of volunteers arrived on Sunday from Pennsylvania and South Carolina, and I am currently taking my day off today. I drove to Yadkinville last night to spend the day today at Shelby's dad's house with Shelby and her little brother Ryder. It's been very relaxing so far, and I'll head back to Trade, TN tonight.

St. Francis :)

On Wednesday we ended up going to Grandfather Mountain, it was actually my first time visiting even though I've lived in North Carolina my entire life. We went on a short hike and walked across the mile high swinging bridge, but spent most of our time enjoying the scenery. On our way back to the center we stopped in Boone and had an excellent dinner out- just a side note: I think I'm falling in love with Boone. I might feel differently in the winter when it's freezing cold and there's snow everywhere, but for now it is one of my favorite towns.
Thursday morning I finished up my responsibilities for the week and Torey and I left around noon, Kentucky-bound. After about a 4 hour drive we arrived in Leslie Co., KY where I was reunited with my home church, St. Francis. It was really a renewing experience for me to get to see my church family, especially Jaime :) And although the visit brought up some sad memories, it was a lot of fun getting to be a floater with Ken for the day on Friday and see everyone hard at work. It was interesting getting to see the volunteer side of things again after learning what goes into the staff position, and seeing how another staff functions. St. Francis left early this morning, and now I'm hanging out in Leslie County for a little while until the Harlan County staff picks me up and we head down to the Breaks. I'm slightly apprehensive about our crazy day on Sunday, so please keep me in your thoughts and prayers. We probably won't be able to get into our center until 6 (at the earliest- apparently they "pray for rain" so that everyone leaves the Trade Days Festival), which is still several hours after our volunteers arrive. We are meeting them at a park in town where we will hold our group leader meeting, evening gathering, and dinner; and once we are finally allowed back in our center we will have to re set-up everything, including hanging black plastic for dividing sleeping quarters and re posting all of my signs all over the center. But I'm just going to enjoy this weekend and worry about Sunday afternoon when it comes.

Week off!... sort-of

Last week ended up going really well, after a rough start on Monday. All of our volunteers were amazing and almost every group exceeded our expectations for the projects they were assigned. Which I'm coming to find out is both a good and bad thing. When a group works quickly, it makes it much more difficult for us to maintain our homes budget- $550 per home per week. I have updated our county's website, so if anyone is interested in reading about our projects you can find them here http://asphome.org/group/johnson-county-tn. We had EG's on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night as well as culture night on Tuesday and our picnic on Thursday. Our culture night was Family Ties, 2 cousins- Jennifer and Roger that sing country, bluegrass, and gospel. They played for about an hour and a half, and I think the volunteers enjoyed the performance as much as I did. Our picnic also went really well; we held it at our center and the families stayed long after the food had been served, which is unusual and indicates the strong bonds the volunteers had created with their families. Our work week went fairly smoothly until Friday, when we learned that was originally supposed to be delivered on Wednesday afternoon wouldn't be arriving at our center until Saturday morning. We had 3 projects that had been waiting on the tin for roofs and underpinning, so we had to scramble to find alternate projects for these groups. Apparently on Thursday the driver had run out of hours, so was legally required to stop driving, and then on Friday morning his truck broke down on Hwy 91 (aka the middle of nowhere). But soon after learning of this misfortune, our DTD (dump truck driver) Megan arrived and we left for runs. I got to spend the first half of the day riding in the dump truck, but after dropping off one load at the transfer station, Jacob and I switched. Torey and I then met at a log cabin in order to complete an initial home visit. We ended our week with the share circle during Friday's EG, and then an ice cream eating contest- which Torey won by a long shot. I learned how to do whip flips, a skill involving whipped cream that I would be happy to show off when I get home in the fall. Our volunteers left early Saturday morning, and we spent the rest of the day catching up on sleep and hanging out with Carter County. With no volunteers, I had thought this week would be super relaxing, but we have still had plenty of work to do. We have been picking up dump from all of our houses, and we had to pull off one of our houses so we completed the work we had signed ourselves yesterday morning. We have also been working on LRPs- Long Range Plans, which involves taking measurements at all of our houses and taking through all potential projects at each home. Then we "pert" which involves prioritizing each project and determining in which order they should be done. Today our PM (program manager aka boss) Kirstin is coming to visit, so we will continue working on our LRPs this morning and then go do something fun this afternoon like exploring a waterfall near Boone or maybe hiking at Grandfather Mountain. But she she be arriving anytime now, so I need to get back to work! :)

Day 1 of Week 1 of Volunteers

Today has been the craziest day of my entire life. And it's not even over, so who even knows what will happen next. My morning started with waking up at 6:30, moving scaffolding from one truck to another van, and then driving about 25 minutes to the lumber store. Luckily, they had everything on my list (Jen also went on a hardware run, but to a different store), but when he was loading the lathing boards (1x4s) he asked if rough cut lumber would be okay, and I wasn't really sure so I just said yes... I got back to the center and was immediately approached by the cantaloupe man. Before I had even stepped out of Jonah (our hoss cargo van) he was giving me his spiel about why we should buy his cantaloupes. So after listening for quite a while, I escaped to get Jacob (our operations coordinator- who deals with the food). I probably should have just told the cantaloupe man no from the beginning, but it was so hilarious and random that I just couldn't resist. It probably was a good business strategy trying to sell his lovely fruit to all of these people, but we just don't have room in the budget. Once I got back into our staff office I was informed of our kitchen fiasco- apparently all of the electrical outlets except one stopped working, and the water cut off at the same time. We had the water cut off several times last week, and even though Doug (our facility manager) had shown us how to fix it- flicking the pump in the basement, we decided that it needed to be replaced. Miraculously, everything seems to be working now, but we are under a severe thunderstorm watch. So I quickly discovered that we needed the finished lathing strips, not rough cut, so Julie (our liason who is here for a few days) went back to Potter's Lumber to return it. We loaded up all of the vans and sent them through border patrol, run by Jacob. Last night at the staff meeting, we had planned on Torey bringing the scaffolding out to one of our houses- "Such Great Heights" (we use a code name for all of the houses we work on in order to be sensitive to the community). But he wasn't feeling well so I volunteered to drive it out. This house has the steepest/bumpiest driveway I have ever seen. really. Anyone in my family, imagine the Miller's driveway and multiply it by 100. Last week we had been able to make it up the driveway, but with all the rain it had washed out and was impossible to drive up. So I got to the bottom of the driveway and parked, a little curious as to where the volunteers were since they had left the center a good 15 minutes before I had. So I hiked up the hill, and went to hang out with the family, unfortunately in the process I fell and ripped my jeans and twisted my ankle :( But I'll be okay, don't worry :) The volunteers finally arrived about 30 or 45 minutes later, and after unloading the scaffolding, I headed back to the center. Unfortunately there were more problems with the water, like sinks not turning off, etc. But around 11:30 we were finally able to start runs. We have two visitors staying for a few days, Julie, like I mentioned before, and Brad, our chaplain. Red, our construction consultant, also rides along on runs every Monday, so the 7 of us had to figure out who was going where. I ended up getting separated from my runs group, so I went and did our grocery shopping and now I'm just hanging out at the center, debating if I should shower or take a nap.

Calm Before the Storm,

Today is the last day of set-up week and our volunteers come tomorrow! We have been working very hard finding 10 homes to sign for work next week and cleaning/setting up our center. The picture with this post is from our commissioning service a week ago, my staff from left to right is Jen, Torey, Jacob and me. We have been getting along really well, both working together on homes and getting things done for our individual positions. I am the volunteer coordinator, which is pretty self-explanatory but mostly means I am the one who contacts the volunteers before they come and is responsible for all of their paperwork. Also, I am responsible for planning EG's (evening gatherings- approximately one hour gatherings where we sing, have mixers, and discussions), finding a culture night, and updating both the Family Summary Database and our website. Updating the website is one of the things on my to-do list for today, but once I do I'll post a link here so you can read about our specific projects. Tonight we are taking a break from work and hanging out with our neighboring county, Carter County, TN which should be a lot of fun. I'll just have to find time to practice guitar so I'm ready to play next week at EG's!

PS mail is always welcome :) :)

Set Up Week

On Monday, our first official work day in the county, we split up into pairs with separate assignments. Torey (the returner on staff- this means he has already been on staff for a summer) and Jen (our center director, aka boss) started IHVs, known to non-ASP language speakers as Initial Home Visits. This is where we go visit houses that have turned in applications, meet the family, and look at the repairs that the family would like done to their home. Jacob and I (the first years, yay!) were supposed to explore the county and in the process complete a very long to-do list. The day started off badly, the hardware store that had been used in the past (and is very close to the center) was affected by the economy and is in the process of phasing out of carrying lumber. So we began our adventure of finding another hardware store that carried what we will need. Unfortunately, 2 days later, we are still in the process of figuring that out. After the hardware store, we went to the bank and everyone signed on to the checking account. Our teller at the bank was very friendly and helped us get started figuring out our hardware dilemma and helping me with suggestions for our culture night. We drove to all each border of the county in our process of exploring, our favorite place was Morefield's, this tiny country store that has bluegrass music on the weekends, our favorite part was the directions which were in true Appalachian style. The other two pictures are of the scenery we saw on our drive out to Morefield's. From what we've seen our county not only has mountains but also lots of beautiful rolling hills. Next we stopped for lunch at Mike's- a roadside BBQ stand and in the words of the sign, we "pigged out at Mike's" The rest of the afternoon was spent running errands, we drove to Boone to get things from Walmart and Lowes and then bought groceries at Save-A-Lot, where, coincidentally we saved a lot. We ended the day by cooking mac n cheese and hot dogs- yum yum and then reviewing the homes Torey and Jen had visited. Today we switched up the pairs, I was with Jen and Torey and Jacob were together, but we all did IHV's. Sadly I don't have time to write about today's adventures because I am going to bed :) sweet dreams everyone!

Woo Hoo Johnson County

Training ended yesterday after load-up day and a talent show on Friday, and then a comissioning service yesterday. We drove to Johnson County with a detour in Johnson City to pick up more ladders- yay! The last section of our drive is represented very accurately by the picture, it was definitely a fun drive :) We met our neighboring county, Carter County in Elizabethton for dinner last night, and we passed the covered wagon festival on our way. We then set up our phone and internet in our new center!! I don't have cell service at the center, but should have it around the county. If you want to call our staff office the number is (423) 727-0230. We spent the day today exploring Boone, we went to the Mast General Store and ate at COOKOUT :) Glad I don't have to go without cookout milkshakes all summer. Back at our center I also got a tour of the grist mill on the property, which is beautiful! We have spent the rest of the day setting up the center, taking inventory of everything in the kitchen, and getting in touch with volunteers. I am already missing my friends from the porch, but excited for the next nine weeks in Johnson County!

Last Days of Training

First things first I want to give my contact information for the summer:
I will be living in Johnson County, TN starting this Saturday

My mailing address is:
ASP Johnson County Center
General Delivery
Trade, TN 37691

And the phone (which is not set up yet) is:
(423) 727-0230

I don't know if I'll have cell phone service or not, but will let you know!

Training has continued to be fun, but very tiring. We did "hands on day" yesterday, where we learned how to write work orders, do Sunday night home visits and we did a practice Initial Home Visit. We also got to do some hands on construction where we learned how to make stringers for stairs, kickers to support a roof, and cut bird's eyes in rafters. We are in sessions all day today and then tomorrow we will drive to Johnson City for load up day!! I am excited to go to my county, but a little sad to be leaving everyone that I've become such good friends with on the porch.

Hope everyone is having a great summer and I'll post more soon :) please write!

Training, training, training

Training is long, but lots of fun. There are over 100 of us here and we have been learning soooooooo much. In between construction sessions about anything from how to build a foundation to how to install windows and doors to how to fix a toilet, we have sessions about other skills we will need this summer like how to recognize and handle relationship violence and spiritual leadership. As our PM's (program managers) have been telling us, what we are learning here is "like trying to take a sip of water from a fire hose." But inbetween learning, we have had fun mixed in, like going to our picnic, listening to a bluegrass band, and my favorite so far, learning how to square dance. I found out my location and staff on Sunday, I will be in Johnson County, Tennessee. This is right on the North Carolina border, right next to Boone, so if any of you come close please let me know! I am running out of time now but will blog more later!!

Goodbye Apex, Hello Jonesville, VA

Hello everyone,

I have decided to keep a blog this summer since I will probably have limited access to facebook and wanted to keep some kind of a record of my summer, whether people decide to read it or not. For those of you that don't know, I am spending my summer as a staffer with the Appalachia Service Project. ASP is an organization in which high schoolers from youth groups around the country come to the Appalachian region for a week of their summer. They are assigned a county, and stay at a center there- the center is usually a school, so the volunteers sleep on air mattresses or cots and eat cafeteria food while they are there. During the week they work in groups of 7 (5 volunteers and 2 group leaders) on their assigned site. The site is a family's house which they will work on in order to make it 'warmer, safer, and drier.' There are I think around 26 centers throughout Appalachia, and a group of 4-5 staffers (college students, like myself who have been hired by ASP) live at each center, running it over the course of the summer.

I leave tomorrow for my training in Jonesville, VA and will be there until June 6th, when I will leave for set-up week at my county. I won't find out which county I will be working in or who I will be on staff with until May 30th, and will post it here as soon as I can! I don't know if I'll have cell phone service in Jonesville, but you can send mail to this address:

ASP Jonesville HSC

P.O. Box 250

Jonesville, VA 24263

or you can call (276) 346-3377 and according to what I've been told, during training evenings are the best time to reach me, and a message will be taken if a session is going on. If you are opposed to snail mail, I should have access to email, please send it to my school address kdbeach@email.unc.ed

Well I'm off to the porch! Please keep in touch over the summer :)