Our first few days have been jam packed so here's our blog post recapping how busy we've been!
We got up bright and early on Saturday morning to depart from Columbia. The eleven of us packed up two cars and hit the road. We arrived in Pittsburgh 12 hours later to be greeted by excited staff members of our service site.
We're serving at The Woodlands Foundation this week. The Woodlands provides services for people with disabilities and chronic illnesses. This week we're helping out both directly by working with campers but also indirectly by helping maintain the giant property The Woodlands sits on.
We were given a tour the first night and stumbled into a dance party of 30 adult campers on their last night of a weekend camp. We quickly unpacked our bags and headed up to dance the night away with our new friends!
Our first day was our day off. We went into Pittsburgh and went to one of the highest points in the city. Mt. Washington has the most breathtaking view of the entire city. We also went to Primanti Bros, the iconic Pittsburgh restaurant. We also went to the movie theater to see the new Beauty and the Beast movie. We even drove by the Abby Lee Dance Studio from the show Dance Moms because a lot of us are fans of the show. Our free day was a nice time to see the city and settle in.
The next morning came bright and early. We started our first day of service by raking leaves and picking up sticks, the other half of the group helped dig a seven foot hole. The grounds keepers have expressed extreme gratitude for our all our work. The tasks that take us a couple hours, take them a few days.
They said in the fall they spend about an entire month nearly all day every day keeping up with picking up leaves and sticks. They also had plumbing problems and needed our help digging to find the pipe causing the issues.
Later that night we were able to attend their music ensemble class. It's a class of about a dozen people with disabilities that are performing a concert next month. They were excited to see us and we were so excited to see them too! We got to listen to them sing and play a selection of Disney songs. We also got to play instruments and sing along with them too!
We've all really enjoyed being able to directly serve people with disabilities, but also do the tasks that are helping The Woodlands as an organization. When we work on maintenance tasks, the staff is able to focus their attention onto other projects and they've been so grateful.
Today we painted the counselor cabin. The cabin hasn't been updated in years and was in need of a face lift.
Despite being tired, all of us are just so thankful to be serving at such an amazing location. The staff is so wonderful and welcoming. The campgrounds and city are beautiful. We still have so much of our week ahead of us, so keep an eye out for another recap later this week!
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