Volunteers: 150 volunteers
Service Partner: Los Duranes Community Center
When: November 1 - 4, 2010
TCF: Dylan Morrill, Georgia Lawrence, Flo Capinding, Steadman Graves, Phillip St. Clair, Emily Kean, Aundrea Dean, Dan Nemiroff; Project Manager, Hugh Harlow
Reserves: City Year Boston Senior Corps Member, Ann Holland, City Year Boston Senior Corps member, Emily Ostroff, and Special Project Manager to the Dean, Damon Cawley
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Paint station and murals set up in the gym and ready for T-Mobile volunteers to come and paint! |
T-Mobile and City Year's Care Force came together and made CHANGE happen in one of Albuquerque's communities called Los Duranes. It was so much fun, but that's not how I always felt, let me tell you all about it.
Coming to Albuquerque I didn't know what to expect, but this is what I did know. I was extremely tired, and I had no idea how I was going to give this project my all, and I was in charge of T-Mobile's signature project. The plane ride wasn't one that you would want to take everyday. It was five hours from Boston to Salt Lake City and one hour to Albuquerque. It wasn't quick, fast and in a hurry… you know the way I like my plane rides.
Monday morning we arrived at the Los Duranes Community Center, and there weren’t many people, or much movement. We met Ray, the Director of the Center, and what I really appreciated about him was that he wanted the help, so he did what ever he could to be of assistance to us, buffing the floors and moving things around making it easier for us to operate. I started the week off on Monday cutting wood. Tuesday was a different day and a different task; we had cut a majority of the wood on Monday, so for the remainder of the trip we devoted the majority of our time into taping and tarping and what a fun activity that can be when you are doing it with people you can talk to all day. We also had Ann Holland and Emily Ostroff who were the reserves from City Year Boston on this event, which was really cool because they were members of CYB '09 - '10 and for those of you that don’t know, that is where Steadman the Extraordinaire was born. We also had Damon Cawley who is the Special Projects Manager to the Dean, from City Year Headquarters. He is such a great guy to talk to. Every time I talk to him I feel I learn something new. In dealing with reserves I figured out my learning moment early in the week. We as Team Care Force have to make sure we are passing on our knowledge so that our work flow is consistent, and the Reserves are not left out of the loop, and left by themselves to figure out how to do something that we should have taught them. Wednesday was supposed to be an easy day. We were suppose to just lay down the tarp and get our stations ready for the big day but for some odd reason so much more tasks were packed on and we were at the site much longer than we anticipated. All in all we worked together to get through each task and I can say we had fun.
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The T-Mobile Huddle Up Zone. |
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Gymnasium: After |
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Gymnasium: Before |
Thursday was the service day. I can honestly say that since my first event in Illinois, I haven’t been nervous on service days. I just feel that I know what I need to do and I just need to make sure I do it in order to be successful. With doing the T-Mobile Huddle Up Zone there are so many components that make up your project and lets just say that, that morning I wasn’t ready. I totally forgot about certain parts of my project and luckily my Program Manager Hugh Harlow, realized I was spinning around in circles and he helped me get ready. The volunteers that I had that day were great. They came in with the mindset of getting the job done. There were some people there who were not comfortable painting, but they did it anyway. There were some people there who have never been on a ladder but they got up on the ladder and did a wonderful job painting. I was so happy. Amazing volunteers make a great service day. When the day came to an end and the room was full of all the donations it was a complete transformation.
When you are tired and feel that you don’t have the strength to pull through, dig down into your inner you and there you will find strength, reason and will power to give it your all. As I stated before I was tired going down to Albuquerque but when I got there I saw a community that was in need and I dedicated this year of service to those communities. So I have no reason not to give my all.
Ray Wright, Los Duranes Community Recreation Center Supervisor, giving thanks.
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