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.