Spike 3

The AmeriCorps pledge

I can't believe I've already pasted the half way point! It's so sad to think about how soon all of us will be going home so my friends will be spread all around the county and I won't get to see them that often.  I love this program (most days) and can't believe how fast it's going by!

For people who don't know I'm actually applying to be a field team leader next year, hopefully at this campus or wherever my friends go (either here, iowa, or mississippi since those are the only winter start campuses).  I'll know by the end of this year if I got the job and will be coming back in January or not.

But for now, I've begun spike 3 and have come to Camden, New Jersey to work for Habitat for Humanity.  It's actually not my favorite... I've worked for Habitats in the past, but this one is not the greatest.  I have issues with some of the sponsors and I feel like they don't trust us to do difficult tasks, which make the work mundane and seem pointless.

The row of houses we are finishing... We have to board up all the windows and doors at the end of the workday.  There is also a chain linked fence surrounding the site

The house we are demolishing

Support walls we installed so the house doesn't fall down on top of us

If you don't know anything about Camden here's a quick rundown:

• It's been voted (multiple times) as the most dangerous city in the county...
• The day we got here there was a deadly shooting and stabbing on either end of our street (separate incidents)...
• Within the first 5 minutes of leaving our house we saw someone get pulled over by the police, then patted down and arrested...
• There is a mobile police unit that is almost always parked outside our worksite...

• Around 3 each day the police swarm the streets near our work in order to "make their presence known"...
• We were advised not to go into our corner store if we saw drug dealers outside...
• 2 men were doing a drug deal about 5 feet from me when I was sweeping at work...
  It's home to the Campbell's factory...
  It was once a city that flourished until gentrification took over and drugs became the norm.

View of Philly from the roof

The cool thing is we are just across the bridge from Philadelphia, so we've gone exploring and went there for Jimmy's 19th birthday.

Apparent'y Philly is known for having large statues of things... 

jason got jumped by a pawn

Go directly to jail, do not pass go

The creepy present that was left for us by the last NCCC team here

We have to drive to a park in order to do PT since it's not safe to just go out the door for a run...

Yep.  That's my home until August 26th!

So we also got a new member on our team.  Her name is Monique and she transferred from the moose unit.

My team (raven 4) was chosen to possibly go to Colorado as a camp crew and support the wildland fire fighters who are working long days to contain all the wildfires.  THIS WOULD BE SO COOL! Even if they didn't call me to actually help on the fire (which technically I could since I'm red carded), it would be so awesome to get to work with the fire fighters and talk to them about their job/ fires they've been on.  I'm considering applying for a seasonal fire job after all my AmeriCorps stuff since I loved last round so much.  If I got to go to Colorado it would be ideal since it would help me decide if that's really what I want to do.  Who knew that I would graduate college thinking I want to be a baker, and a few short months later I could be changing my life and becoming a fire fighter!   To quote Jerusha... I went from cupcakes to badass!

There's a possibility that my team wouldn't go, and we won't find out until campus randomly calls us one day and says we're going.  Keep your fingers crossed fore me :)

Yep so now you're all caught up on my ameri-life.  Until next time...