Maitland - Children

Our second two days of volunteering with New Hope For Kids has given us all a very good sense of what it is like to run a non-profit. On Tuesday a few of us tackled the phones and e-mails and reached out to all the volunteers in the database to see whether or not they wanted to continue volunteering. Another few of us took charge of photographing the house so they could use the photos for the website. The work with the shredding papers and the landscaping continued. One of the projects our group took charge of was creating Christmas ornaments that served as wish lists for the children.  This stood out to us so much because we had to make these cards in March in preparation for cards that would go out in November. Gabby pointed out that, "for every front office, there is a back office that makes it run". This was a cool perspective to make up for the fact that we weren't getting to work one-on-one with the children.

The nights have all been made up of family dinners, bonding games, and laughing so hard we've cried. A lot. We've spent plenty of time in the hot tub, planning word assassin attacks, and eating… chocolate.

Today we ventured an hour from the condo to Eustis, Florida, where the New Hope's other property is. The day began chilly, but warmed up as we began moving and the sun came up. We knew we had a big task on our hands when Dave, the Executive Director, began to list off our to-do list.

Paint and stain the ramp, power wash the porch, clean the floors and bathroom, trim the hedges, clean the windows, weed the lawn.

All of a sudden 11 o'clock in the morning turned into 2 in the afternoon. Dave treated us to one of the tastiest meals we've had to date. We each ate our body weight in Mexican food, burritos, enchiladas, tacos, and the like.  

All in all, the day culminated with 12 tired ASBers, one raunchy splinter, several shirts ruined from paint, and so much Mexican food eaten… (we went to Qdoba for dinner).  Our reflection focused heavily on how our work is relating back to the good of the children and the realization of how much work goes into a non-profit.

We know that even though we only have two more days of work left, we have so much more to learn! Yay for ASB!