Maitland-Children

MIZ-ASB! Our adventure started on Friday afternoon; we left rainy Missouri just in time to beat the heart of the snowstorm and headed east to spend the night in Nashville! Our trip consisted of Chipotle and getting to know each other really quickly… 18+ hours in a 12-passenger van can do that to you. We crashed in Nashville, Tennessee, and were only there long enough to catch some shut-eye and head on our way.
Saturday's drive tested all three of our driver's skills. Once we crossed the state line into Florida we practically swam the rest of the way in; can you say lightning storm? A few of our group members experienced the grand Chick-Fil-A for the first time, and it was glorious to say the least.

We arrived in Maitland, Florida, to a warm night, a gorgeous condo, and a luxurious pool; needless to say, we're pretty spoiled over here! After a midnight shopping trip, the realization that we all love chocolate and spreading out all of our stuff, we cashed in for the night.

Fortunately, the first full day we had in Florida, Sunday, was a free day. And it was adventurous to say the least. We headed an hour and a half east to Cocoa Beach, where we spent the afternoon playing around in the water. The wind was high, so the sand got everywhere… everywhere. Our ears, our eyes, our bags, our sandwiches. Hah! SANDwiches.

After being forced off the beach because of a daunting storm cloud that went quickly from harmless to a tornado warning, we went sprinting into Ron Jons Surf Shop to pass the time until the storm died down. A few bro tanks later we left the glorious surf shop. We came home to make our first "family dinner" — delicious tacos. Yum! Apples-to-Apples and reflection time was another great way we got to know each other! We piled into our beds (and onto the floor and the balcony) to get a good night's sleep before our first day at New Hope For Kids.

If you can picture the perfect spring day, that's what Monday was: small breeze, 75 degrees, and sunny. We packed our lunches and drove the 15 minutes to the house. When we all pulled up to the yellow house we were all taken aback; some of us expected a larger house, some of us expected a recreation complex. The 100-year-old house welcomed us with open arms, and once we stepped inside we could see how much of an impact it would have on us.

New Hope For Kids is a center that allows children a safe and comfortable place to grieve the loss of a loved one, be it a parent, sibling or another close family member. The center is built like a home, with friendly paintings on the walls and an array of comforting blankets and stuffed animals. Gloria, our contact person and the volunteer and marketing manager, was so excited to teach us about their program. Founded 17+ years ago, the program has two branches — one to assist in the grief process and the other to grant wishes to children who have been diagnosed with illnesses that might prevent them from seeing adulthood.

Unfortunately, the program is also on spring break this week, so we are doing a lot of behind the scenes work rather than working directly with kids. On Monday, we made nearly 500 information packets to distribute, landscaped, and shredded papers! The impact that we were able to have on the amount of work that had to be done was incredible. With an eight-person staff, it is hard to get a lot of the behind the scenes work done since the main focus is the one-on-one work with the children.

We learned a lot of things about the rest of the group during the first few days of our trip:

• Sally and craft projects with ribbons don't mix too well.

• We're sneaky when we play word assassins.

• Hold on tight when Steven makes turns in the van.

• We all love chocolate.

• Sunburn lines happen to pale Midwesterners.

• We make quite the family.

• Did I mention we like chocolate?

• ...Everything out of Ben's mouth is great.

We can't wait to see what the rest of the trip is going to teach us!