Monday, March 28: The Day We Earned Our Dinner
by Samantha Ritchie & Connor Zuraski
Today was our first day of service and we definitely made the most of it! My site was the mural in Smoketown with Ethan, Stephen, Holly, Mareike, and Madison. We walked from our hotel to the site and met Mary Sullivan who brought us paint donated by a local business. Mary was so sweet and made sure we had everything we needed including coffee and hot cocoa. We immediately began to paint (which was already whitewashed by Youth Build) and got a lot done before lunch! While we painted, we bonded over a Backstreet Boys sing-along. It was pretty chilly today, but we got to warm up inside the United Way building for lunch. Mary gave us a history of the building and told us about her experiences volunteering with the organization. We went back to the mural and painted before the kids from Meyzeek arrived. They were so excited to paint! All of them were so happy to be there and see us, and we just let them go for it while we supervised. We also got to see the kids we met last night at the reception again. We stopped around 4:30 with all but a few of the triangles still left for the other group to finish tomorrow. One of the more challenging tasks of the day was just getting the paintbrushes clean! After a very productive day, Mary drove us back to the hotel where we chowed down on some Dominos pizza while watching re-runs of the Office. It was a very rewarding day!
One thing we noticed while we were working was how supportive the Smoketown community was toward the project. So many people stopped to ask what the mural was about and how excited they were about having something to liven up the community. The Healthy-in-a-Hurry storeowners were also really helpful and provided us with a ladder and a place to warm up!
Connor here,
While half of our group put in a hard day's work at the mural site, the rest of us drove off to Oxmoor Farms this morning for a day of work outside… and that was exactly what we got! Some of us cleared land for the rest of the week's visitors while others got their hands dirty shoveling, mulching, hoeing, sawing, and drilling! We almost collapsed by lunchtime, but later in the afternoon we enjoyed a thorough tour of the farm from Mike and finally got a chance to taste veggies straight from the ground and see just how many types of produce are grown at Oxmoor! Exhausted, we boarded the minivans and returned to the hotel, eager to share some stories from today with the rest of the gang. Can't wait to go back and meet some new people on the farm later this week!
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