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!