One hell of a ride...

Graduated from AmeriCorps NCCC today!

In the last ten months...

I have slept in 14 different rooms.

Lived in 4 different "houses."

Drove in a 15 passenger van for over 10,000 miles.

Lived with 11 other people.

Worked with 4 organizations.

Had 223 bug bites.

Traveled through or lived in 10 states.

And made life long friends.

I am anxious to get home to my beloved city, friends, and family! But, as I knew it would, it all ended so quickly. I have a ton of newly acquired skills and a million memories and inside jokes. And I want to end my LAST blog posting about AmeriCorps with this:

To my Ameri-family:

I love every one of you and I will surely go through withdrawls of not making meals for 12 people or sharing two bathrooms. I will miss the company and conversation and the comfort to talk about ANYTHING (oh, you know...) with you. Today was not goodbye, but only temporary distance until we can all meet up again. I will keep in touch and I hope you do the same. As much as they will try, my family and friends will not be able to truly understand the experience we all just had. I am so thankful for the last year and I owe it to the people I spent 24/7 with. I will miss you!! And I love you!

Home next week! And don't worry, I will be there awhile. :)

Back in NOLA

We are almost done! My team and I will leave for Denver in a week and two days. Time has flown by! I will be back in San Diego in less than a month. My official last day with AmeriCorps is on July 27th, but my mom and I are road tripping it back home from Denver and plan on stopping where we want for however long we want, so there isn't an exact date for when I arrive in San Diego - sometime around August 3-4...probably. It is bittersweet though. I MISS the crap out of home and cannot wait for ocean sunsets, mexican food, a soft bed, and seeing all the wonderful PEOPLE! But this has been an incredible and life changing experience. I am pretty sure with all the people I have met I can road trip across the US and not even have to stay in a hotel. These are life long friends and I am so happy to have shared this experience with them. I am not sure what I am going to do with myself without a house full of twelve people, sleeping in bunk beds, nursing bug bites and cuts, wearing my steel toe boots and uniform, and driving a 12 passenger van... But I am sure everyone at home will be able to fill my time. :) And now I can satisfy my travel addiction for pretty cheap around the US!

For now though... I am back in NOLA, working and sweating. Here are some pictures of this round...

SOOOOOO Pretty. I WANT TO LIVE HERE!

Sarah, Aaron, Alex and I hanging out by the river

Trying to save the Salvage Store from flooding.

New Orleans from the Ferry

Sarah and Amanda building a lean-to

Round 4 - Almost Done!

Well round 4 started off a little different than we all thought it was going to... We were told that we were to go to Corinth (pronounced core-inth), Mississippi to respond to a flood disaster. We got all suited up in our respirators, gloves, boots, and coveralls. Overall we mucked out 20 apartments and about 15 houses. Gross, Gross work. But it was cool to do something different! Our sponsors were awesome, we ate dinner at a different church every night and had all of our meals prepared for us. They even did our laundry every 2-3 days! We were definitely spoiled. Our housing was an arena...which was pretty cool. Of course being the South, boys and girls had to be separated. So us eight ladies lived on one side while the four boys were separated by a thin little curtain you could see through! We had a cable and a DVD player too. We thought we were going to be there longer than we were, but it ended up only being 2 weeks.

Here are some pictures from the mucking:

http://picasaweb.google.com/kristycoleman86/Round4Mississippi#

NOW we really are on our final stretch! Only 4.5 weeks left before we head back to Denver. We are back in New Orleans, living 4 houses down from where we were first round. The heat and humidity is really getting to all of us.. I have countless bug bites and I might melt before this is over. It is in the 90's, but with humidity it feels like 105-110 degrees. Miserable! We are with Water 3, so all of our friends are just a few houses down. Most of the work is pretty similar to first round, a little more building things because we are working more with DeCon. (This is the team of people that go in and salvage materials to sell from the damaged houses.) But nothing too overly exciting in New Orleans. Still an awesome city, but it is slowing sucking the life out of us with this weather! There are thunderstorms almost every afternoon too... Not sure how that is even possible, but here we are.

Nikki and I in all of our sweaty glory!

I miss everyone and I will see you all soooo soon and I am stoked to be back in Cali! And don't worry, I won't leave again for a while! (minus my travel addiction that will probably pull me away for a week or two - but that can't be avoided!)

Love you all!

Fourth Round is just around the corner!

Wow, I can't believe we are leaving on our fourth and final project in AmeriCorps, which was supposed to be in New Orleans...BUT

My team is getting deployed on Monday to go on Disaster relief in Corinth, Mississippi! It is a teeny, tiny town on the border of Mississippi and Tennessee. Population is about 14,000 people and the total square miles is 30.... So picture 2 Santee's worth of land, but one fifth of the people... TINY! It is VERY conservative and religious, only on movie theater, a coca-cola museum, and a civil war interpretive center! Should be interesting...We are there a minimum of three weeks, but we could be there up to six weeks. Good thing I have my air mattress! We are living in a Red Cross shelter with other volunteers. Our main job will be to muck out houses that have major flood damage. We have to wear respirators and jumpsuits. Sexy!

Our last week a the Denver Children's Home was awesome. Very sad to say goodbye to the kids and you all know how well I hold up when tears are involved. Some of the kids were so upset, they were physically shaking. AWFUL! But we had such a good time there with them and I am so happy I got to know all the kids and staff there.

Our second and final drum circle performance went sooo well at the community meeting! There was a ton of people and we got crazy cheers!

More to come next week when we get to our disaster site! - Should be there by Wednesday...

Miss you all and only a few more months until I'm home!

It's Been Awhile...

Things are going pretty great here. I find myself bored frequently at work, but I LOVE hanging out with the kids when we get the chance. We are practicing to perform a drum circle! I know, it is shocking that I can keep a beat! We will perform it for the kids next Friday and then for the whole corps on May 12th! That is about 250 people! Pretty nerve-racking, but it should be soooo awesome. Someone should be recording it, so hopefully I can show it to you guys. :) Other than drum circle practices though, we really don't do much of anything.. It is kind of like being back in middle school sometimes. Yesterday I re-learned about WWI, last week was volcanoes, you get the picture.

This morning we had to participate in Global Youth Service Day and we went to Red Rocks to pick up trash and do some trail maintenence. It was FREEZING and snowing... We had to wear our rain gear. Sexy. Bright yellow is such an improvement to the normal uniform. But after we were finished, there was a drum circle! They were sooo awesome. We went on stage and played maracas and things. Now I can say I performed on the Red Rocks stage with an actual audience! In case you don't know what Red Rocks Ampitheatre is... it is a famous concert venue built into the mountain. Gorgeous.

Soooooo I found out about fourth round....NEW ORLEANS. meh. We are working with Rebuilding Together, again. But hey, we may be in the purple house this time, instead of the green one.. WoooHoo! Not. It is going to be disgustingly hot and humid and I am not looking forward to it. They are predicting 5 hurricanes over a category 3 while we are there. We might get to do some disaster work, which would be a pretty cool experience. Of course I don't want people to be hurt but maybe a disaster scare...? So we can set up the shelter, but nothing actually happens...? We leave Denver on May 17th. So a few more weeks in this spastic weather city. I can't believe how fast this is all going.. We will be done before you know it and I will be back in Sunny San Diego basking in the sun on the beach. Can't. Wait. But of course I will enjoy my last few months in the Corps. Hopefully the New Orleans humidity will just melt the pounds right off my body or just leave me with SWEET tan lines. Steel-toed boots and shorts. Oh yeah, baby. Get ready!

I will try to update this more often, but I get so tired after work!

Miss and Love you all!

Denver Children's Home

We started our project here one week ago and I LOVE IT. It is so much fun hanging out with the kids and I can't believe it is "work." We work pretty great hours too. 9-3:30. Most of the kids come from a traumatic background and we don't learn too much about those stories unless the kids open up to us. But we spent most of last week observing classes and just getting familiar with the kids. They range from about 11 to 18 years-old. Maybe 2/3 boys. Some of them are just so darn adorable, you just want to take them home with you. Most of our interactions with them make you forget that they have very deep issues and act like normal, happy kids. Other times...we are definitely reminded of that. The teachers at DCH are really incredible people and are super welcoming to us. It is going to be so hard leaving the kids at the end of the project, but I think we are going to get so much out of these next two months.

It has been a pretty big adjustment to life in the Dorms. Everyone is so spread out and I don't see people very much if I don't go into their rooms. Can get a little lonely. Tonight was interesting... We were ALMOST done with cooking dinner when the fire alarm went off. It is the most piercing noise I have ever heard in my life. 7 firetrucks came and it turns out a motor overheated and started smoking and coming out the vents. Nothing major, but quite an ordeal at 7p.

The weather has been a little ridiculous. We had 70 degree weather in the middle of last week, snow day Friday, hot today, and supposed to snow again tomorrow evening thru Wednesday night. Crazy. We are supposed to go to Boulder this weekend too! Hopefully we don't get snowed out again!

Denver Children's Home or DCH - oldest non-profit in Denver.

Transition Week

This has been a pretty great week back in Denver seeing all of my friends and hanging out in this awesome city!

Monday: Debrief on CAP in Tulsa. Went well, not overly exciting there... Played Trampoline Dodgeball and holy crap was that a freaking blast!! Giant Trampolines, soo soo fun!

Tuesday: Unit Time - Roller Skating! I pretty much organized it, so that was awesome. And we got our new Shuffle Round teams. Went downtown to a comedy show and that was pretty cool, except we were out until 3am! So tired...

Lovely ladies and I at the Rink. (Megan, Catie, Nicole, and Shannon)

Wednesday: Life After AmeriCorps day. Waste. Of. Time.

Thursday: Tried to give blood. Freaking out about it.. Went down there and got my finger pricked and my iron was at 36% and it needed to be at least 38%. Lame. So worked up for nothing and the prick hurt!

Today: Hanging out. Last weekend in Denver for most of the teams and we are going to a St. Patty's Day parade tomorrow downtown. That will be lots of fun and I can't wait.

Project starts Monday! And here is a a link to a video about the Denver Children's Home if you're interested....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYEEsDLGCow

I am SOOOOOOOOOOOO excited!

I'm baaaaack..

Rolled on into Denver at around ten this morning. I am completely unpacked and ready to be here for the next 2 and a half months! Tulsa was nice... But it is great to have a bed, a place for all of my stuff, internet whenever I want, laundry always, blah blah blah.

Our last week in Tulsa was nice though. We had several dinners in our honor and they were all delicious! On our way back yesterday, we stayed in a hotel in Goodland, KS... I thought these sort of places only existed in movies.. We ate dinner at this diner called Hank's. Good pie! Everyone starred at us when we came in and it was slightly awkward. We definitely looked out of place. There was an indoor pool at the hotel, I got all excited only to discover it was drained... Lame. Other than that, Spike travel was good.

But yeah, nothing else going on quite yet. Besides the weather is getting warmer!!!!!!!!!! But I miss the beach and SD in the Spring.. And all of you! It should be a pretty busy weekend, catching up with everyone that I haven't seen in two months. I can't believe I am half way done with AmeriCorps.. Crazy.

Here are some shots that I love of my team! We will be split up this round and I will miss them like crazy!

This is the five of us that worked at Exchange with our two site supervisors. Lisa is AWESOME!

Day of Service, working to maintain prairie land.

Aren't we adorable??? - Oak Tree Council, where Tulsa was founded

Still at Oak Tree

Pam and Becky, our points of contact overseeing our whole project. Really great people!

Overall, we did 3,240 tax returns as a team and saved the clients $648,000 in tax prep fees. Most of those returns were in the thousands of dollars. Really, really rewarding project. Community Action project as a whole has done over 9,000 returns thus far and they are about halfway through. We also worked 2,400 hours preparing the tax returns. The clients average income was $20,000 for the year.

What?!?!

So I was sitting at work yesterday and my TL called and asked how I would like to be on the Denver team. Apparently Dateline is no longer going to be filming them and the guy that they usually follow was getting his fourth pick. SOO we got to switch since Boulder was his first pick! I was slightly conflicted only because I was starting to get used to the idea of being in Boulder with such an awesome team! But I am soooo much happier with the Denver project and Boulder is close, so now we can just visit them! It will be a much more enjoyable experience. Internet always, laundry whenever, awesome team, my own room, TV...

If you want to check out where I will be working at... http://denverchildrenshome.org/index.php

But the jist is, that I will be helping teens figure out life plans - college, career goals, etc. I am super excited about it!

AND I did someone's taxes today that lived in Santee for half the year! I saw the Cali Driver's License and looked at the city and was in shock! Small world! She was so happy to be out of there. And I was thinking, you moved to freaking Oklahoma...Weird.

Week and a half left in Tulsa~

Pretty much the same here... More taxes. Much more down time lately. I had a pretty eventful week though. I married two people! Apparently in the state of Oklahoma, you can legally get married if you file "Married Filing Joint" and are single. Pretty exciting! Except she was 21 with 2 kids and he was 25 and both unemployed....But still! I have some power!

Really not much going on though..

We have had a small prank war going on between the girls and boys on my team.. See photos for a little proof of that.

The weekend was pretty crappy weather which made shopping fun.

We went to the Ronald McDonald house to clean out their fridges for ISP....

Sarah and I went to the Philbrook Museum two weekends ago. That was pretty awesome actually (again see photos). It was a huge villa that was turned into a museum of art. Some very good work in there. Because of this excursion I have decided that I shall own a mansion somewhere in the hills of Ireland. So be nice and I may let you stay there with me. :)

OH and I went to my first Hockey game! In box seats! SOOOO nice. Tulsa Oilers won. Pretty fun crowd, free food, comfy seats.

Then there was the Sleeping Beauty Ballet...Nice nap...

Ate a "california burrito" at a Mexican Restaurant. No, no. It was fajitas meat, rice beans, cheese, and avocado on top. Good. But no hole in the wall awesomeness!

Pretty random post, but it has been that CRAZY of a week.

And I know I have been slacking on the pictures... But here are some of what I have been up to! (+ updates on facebook, so you don't have to creep on my teammates photos anymore.)

http://picasaweb.google.com/kristycoleman86/Round2Tulsa#

Round Tres!

Well we FINALLY got our projects for Round 3 which will begin on March 15 and end on May 7. I will be in Boulder, CO working with the City of Boulder, Open Space and Mountain Parks.
See link below...

http://www.bouldercolorado.gov/index.php?Itemid=1922&id=3073&option=com_content&task=view

It is bitter-sweet for me.. Working outdoors all day in the mountains eradicating weeds, building trails and digging ditches for irrigation lines is not exactly my cup of tea. And I'm really bummed that I didn't get Denver. How I am the only one from my current team to get Boulder when countless other people put it higher on their list baffles me, but I love, love, LOVE my new team. There will be twelve of us and it is a super motivated and positive bunch. Plus we will get to live in the Ameri-mansion! It is supposedly the nicest accommodations that AmeriCorps has to offer. Someone donated several acres and a very nice house in downtown Boulder to AmeriCorps many years ago. The location is amazing and only 30 minutes out of Denver. AND Southwest Airlines is running a deal right now for tickets between San Diego and Denver for only $69! Very cool. I need to work out the details but I will definitely be able to come home for a long weekend sometime during Round 3!

But, TAXES...now that is going about the same. Things have really slowed down here. And we have several long breaks at work. Which gives me plenty of time to play on the internet and research rather pointless things..But I am soaking it in before having to be outside ALL the time in Boulder.

Oh and my new team will still be Water 1 (because I have the same Team Leader). They are: Daniel (TL), Butts, Nicole, Megan, Bryan, Michelle, Avi, Max, Danielle (my roomie), Kelly, Ashley, and Jocie. I know that means nothing to you all, but they are a bunch of awesome people!

Round 3 projects are in..

So as you may or may not remember, Round 3 is shuffle round! Meaning that we each get to rank the projects individually and get a new team for two months! Which is good and bad. It is nice to mix it up, but we all just hit our stride with our team and know everyone's little quirks. But at least we get to finish the year together in Round 4!

The water unit's 5 projects are:

1. Denver Children's Home (Denver, CO) - mentor students in school, employment and living independently.

2. City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks (Boulder, CO) - trail construction, weed eradication, prepare irrigation system, etc.

3. Ferncliff Camp (Little Rock, AR) -Maintain the camp grounds, Build a training facility out of recycled materials that will be used to train volunteers in green energy

4. Missouri Dept of Conservation (Williamsburg, MO) - Preserving prairie land, building bird houses, removing fences, weeding, etc.

5. Habitat for Humanity (Lafayette, LA) - building homes for low income families

That is the order I rank them by the way. I want Denver so so so bad!! So keep your fingers crossed for me. I should find out on Friday. AND I expect some visitors if I get a cool place!

Not much else new in Tulsa...I filed my own taxes and got about $1300 back! I bought $400 in Savings bonds too, so hopefully that will be a nice little bit of money in 5 years. New car down payment, maybe??

We are going to a Ballet tomorrow - Sleeping Beauty and maybe a hockey game this weekend. We are going to make an Oklahoma City trip in a few weeks too, so we can see the memorial and explore a (hopefully) more exciting city!

I'll let you know this weekend about round three, I know you are all on the edge of your seats!

Helllllloooo again!

This has been a pretty interesting week and a half... We had a snow day on Thursday afternoon and Friday. Being stuck in a Community Center with no windows was not the greatest. We couldn't even leave because the ground was just covered in ice. Oklahoma was declared in a State of Emergency and we lost power for about two hours. Which was actually kind of fun because we just played with cameras and flashlights in the bedroom... See below for what happens when you are bored in the dark...

Most of us played in the snow and on our playground on Saturday afternoon. Slide covered with ice = Kristy falling down a lot.. But it was really fun since I don't get to do that sort of thing very often. We had a great first outing to WalMart! Woooo! Pushing a shopping cart through the snow was definitely a first for me. Not gonna lie, not the best. My shoes were soaked and it took three of us to get the groceries back to the van. One Californian, one Mississippian, and one Illinoisan. Us warm climate folk are just not cut out for that sort of thing! Outing two of the weekend was to the YWCA to swim and then an Oklahoma 66er's Basketball game. I can't believe how tall these guys are! Some were 7 feet. Craziness. Then to the coffee shop to get internet for the first time since our imprisonment in our center. I am missing so many TV shows!

Yesterday we were slammed at work. We didn't get out of there until 9p (office closes at 7...). They apparently rescheduled all of the Friday/Saturday appointments for yesterday and it took forever! I barely had a minute to myself. But I did get my AmeriCorps W2, so I will get to do my taxes this week!!! I don't think that has excited anyone this much before.. Oh well, I am growing up!

Ta Ta for now! Miss you all!

Hillcrest Children's Medical Center

Yesterday we went to the hospital to work with some special needs kids. We were there for about 2.5 hours and it was soo cool. There are 6 kids that live at the hospital all the time and some others that rotate in and out. Some of them have been abused and are in the foster care system. Most can't walk or talk, but we had a really good time playing with toys and singing to them on the mats. Hopefully I will be able to go there every weekend because they don't get a whole lot of recreation time since the hospital became "for profit" recently and had to let some people go. One of the little boys loved me and every time I came around the corner he went crazy - laughing and waving his arms. SO cute!

We start on a new schedule next week... We don't get to work until 1p and leave at 8p (mon-thurs). I am not as bothered by it as other people. I like sleeping in! Fridays we work 9a-3p, so that is nice.

And here are some pictures finally of my new house!

http://picasaweb.google.com/kristycoleman86/Round2Tulsa#

Welcome to Tulsa, OK

So we have been in Tulsa now for about a week and a half. So far it hasn't been too bad. Little rocky at first getting our living arrangements settled. First we didn't have hot water and then we did and then we didn't again...Now it is pretty decent.



Little overview: We live in the Amos T. Hall Community Center in Northern Tulsa (about 15 minutes from anything semi-interesting). We have a full sized basketball court, pool table, drained pool, bathrooms, locker rooms, huge kitchen and sleeping area. Overall it is pretty sweet. I will post pictures when I go to a coffee shop this weekend because we don't have internet at our "house."We did just get TV and limited cable - CW, FOX, CBS, 5 religious channels, 5 spanish channels and a few others, but no ABC or NBC.

The work so far has been pretty interesting. We are working for an organization called Community Action Project (CAP). They help low income families file their taxes for no charge. They run primarily off of volunteer staff, but of course have site supervisors at all the sites. The training wasn't too bad - just a bunch of practice problems and working our way through them, however painful that was at times.. But we don't get too far out of the really simple forms. Mainly just a few dependents, W2's, and a few others. It is all on the computer too, so very user friendly. :)

We started working with clients today. I have had about 8 so far. Which has been pretty interesting to say the least. I kept getting very strange returns - people pulling out a bunch of receipts, green cards, married recently, kids moving in and out, blah, blah. One family had a translator.. But the people working here are super helpful and you can ask them a million questions and they don't get bothered. Fingers crossed that all the returns are correct and everyone spends their money well since their have been some pretty big ones!

I am pretty excited to start doing my own taxes though, so I can't wait for my W2's!! But before you get too excited...I am still a tax baby. So no sending me stuff yet unless it involves a W2 or two, a few dependents, maybe some social security, even a mortgage. But no rentals or other scary tax forms!

Well, I should get back to work! More to come on my Tulsa/Tax adventures! WoooHooo!

One more thing!

This video was on the news in New Orleans! I did not personally get to work on this house but about half my team did! Of course no mention of AmeriCorps NCCC, but still very cool that we helped get someone back in their home for Christmas after 4 years...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA2TiDh1nxc

Back in Denver

I had a hell of a time getting back to Denver though! My flight left at 7:05a and I arrived at the airport at about 5:35a. It took me and hour and 20 minutes to get through the check in line! I FINALLY got my bags checked in and then waited in security only to arrive at my gate 10 minutes after my flight had left. One of the men that works there said that it was the longest line he had seen since 9/11... It took me all day, but I finally arrived in Denver at 9p and was lucky enough to have my TL pick me up since I missed my shuttle by 8 hours!

The best part though was opening my email today and having one from Southwest apologizing profusely for the inconvenience and giving me and $80 voucher!!! AWESOME!

But now that I am finally back - we are only here for one week! We leave for Tulsa, OK on Saturday. We had our debrief this morning explaining our project in NOLA to our unit leader, another staff member, and to Water 5. Tomorrow we start working on preparing our brief for Tulsa, OK. Couple of random trainings - ATL (Assistant Team Leader) and one on working with kids (Save the Children). We have Baseline on Friday - which should be interesting because I am out of breath just walking up the three flights of stairs to my room.

Sorry there haven't been a ton of pictures, but all of the New Orleans pictures have started to get really repetitive - ladders and painting and scaffolding and painting and ladders....You get the idea. Not so sure the taxes pictures will be much better though.

Hopefully I will be able to post every week in Tulsa, but we don't have internet at our accommodations, so I will just update at the laundromat!

Christmas was good with the Fam. Miss everyone already and Happy New Year!

I added more pics to the Web Album...Captions to come! http://picasaweb.google.com/kristycoleman86/Round1NewOrleans#