What kind of service did we do this year?
By Max Ronan
This year our service work was done with the Service Leaning Program, who brought us projects mostly surrounding helping homeless shelters. We were split up into two groups that did different work, so I can’t say what the other groups did.
The first day my group went to a shelter with a garage that had gotten over filled from donations the previous winter. We emptied the garage onto the driveway and sorted things so we could organize it all. We definitely found some interesting things there.
Another thing that we did was organize a rummage sale and clean some apartments. Different groups cleaned some of the apartments for new tenants and some put out their stuff that they had collected to give away. We got to shop a little at the rummage sale and found some good stuff!
One day we all went to a winter shelter together to help them prepare for this upcoming winter. We swept, mopped, cleaned bathrooms (which I heard got a little chaotic) and cleaned some of their storage areas.
The next one got a little crazy. We were tasked to take down a hoop house, which had collapsed the previous winter. It was a big project that we didn’t complete but it was clear that we helped them a lot, especially in starting the process. We took the big plastic covering off first, which was fun because we got to pop little pockets of water before. The more challenging part came: the hoops. The hoops are big rounded metal rods, they were attached to wooden side pieces and there was another metal rod connecting all of the hoops at the very top. It was a little stressful because we had to figure out what we should do first in order to keep it stable while we were in there. Eventually we figured it out and got started on the first hoop. I remember we picked John to go up on a ladder to get the screws out because he was the tallest. I don’t think anyone will forget that part.
Our last day of work was at a state park, we paved their paths with mulch and got done more than they expected. That just goes to show how much we can do if we work together. There were three main jobs to do that day; fill wheelbarrows with mulch, take the wheelbarrows and dump them out where that needed to be and rake the mulch out so it was nice and even. I was going back and forth with the wheelbarrows of mulch most of the time which I enjoyed but it surely got me sweating. I was especially thankful for the YMCA showers after that day.
Most people when they hear “service trip” before knowing about it probably think it’s boring work and that it’s maybe not worth it. But when you’re working on our trips you’re most likely having fun.