Blitz.

     Well hello folks!  These last two weeks have been interesting.  I am now a (trial) member of a local gym in New York City, as well as most of my team. We have been going every day and taking classes, such as Zumba and abs.  It's a lot of fun!  As for work wise, Monday was MLK day which is a National Day of Service.  Ocean 7, along with another team called Summit 5, decided to help out with painting a community center in The Rockaways.  It was a lot of fun to wear our gray uniforms and do some physical work!  The NYC Service volunteers even gave us a free water-bottle and a free T-shirt for our service! After work we gathered in our hotel and talked about MLK day and did other service learning as well.

Cool T-shirts!

Ocean 7 - a silly picture!

     Other than MLK day, this week has been somewhat of a mess. We were struggling to have enough work at the Federal Court House, so they wanted us to join the Community Relations folks in a blitz in Coney Island.  A blitz is when they canvas neighborhoods and inform people to register for FEMA and also that they have the right to appeal and to go to the local Disaster Recovery Center.  Unfortunately I (and many others on my team) sat in the van for 3 days before being able to be part of the blitz, for a number of different reasons,  the main one being that there wasn't enough work to do.  Finally yesterday I got to canvas a neighborhood after being paired up with a FEMA employee. It sure was cold!  We were supposed to go again today, but it's snowing here which is not an ideal condition to be walking around outside all day.

the Corps.

In other news, FEMA Corps is starting up on other campuses throughout the United States!  Schweet!

Round 2.

Hello all.  Ocean 7 is back in New York City! We are living in an extended stay hotel in Brooklyn and working in Queens (for the most part).  We finished training yesterday and got to go out into the field today. Where did we go? Back where we started on our very first day of Sandy deployment: Breezy Point.  Our team had the opportunity to test out a new FEMA program on the iPad.  The program is for Preliminary Damage Assessments, or PDA's, which are necessary to conduct in order for FEMA to declare the area a  disaster.  The information we collected from using the program was not actually used for this disaster, but rather they received our feedback on the iPad Application.  We debriefed our experience at the Joint Field Office with the peeps in charge.  Today was a great opportunity to re-visit the neighborhood that will forever be burned into our minds as our first steps on the ground of our first disaster.  We saw improvements: the ocean water was gone, the sand was not in the streets, and there was a checkpoint to get in to deter looting. We saw rebuilding.  We saw hope: In the neighborhood that was completely destroyed by the fires someone had posted a sign with a picture of a house that said "Coming Soon"

"Coming Soon"

Today was a great day to start off Round 2 in FEMA Corps.  I am looking forward to what comes tomorrow, though of course I have no idea where I'll be or what I'll be doing.


In other news, Ocean 7 loves our new teammate Zack!  We are glad you are here, Zack.  Also, in the area we are living there is a gym nearby, and almost all of us are thinking about joining, so more news about that on the next post.  I have also decided to challenge myself this round by limiting the amount of money I spend to $75 dollars.  This includes all expenses.  I am challenging myself to do this because almost everything of necessity is provided by FEMA Corps, and most of the things I buy are stupid anyway.  I also want to save up money to spend over the summer when I get back to California.  I have been researching what I'm going to do next year/Life After AmeriCorps, and it turns out I might do another year of AmeriCorps- but a different program.  I am really interested in Food Corps, however there are a very limited amount of members in Food Corps so it would be challenging to get in.  Food Corps is essentially the same program but it is not team-based (Not NCCC) and instead of them providing housing they give more money for your living stipend.  I would serve at Elementary Schools, teaching kids about vegetables and real food, and helping them build their own gardens! I don't have a strong desire to go back to college/DVC, especially since I am getting old and these programs have age limits!
That's all for now folks, thanks for listening and checkin up on me :)

Breezy Point

 The whole Corps!

Winter Break and Transition

Hello Everyone! I hope you all had a wonderdul Christmas and Winter Break!  Many AmeriCorps Members, including myself, went home to their families for the holidays. I had a great time reuniting with my close and extended family, and was especially excited to see my little brothers!  They grow up too fast- seriously they need to stop growing. 

As of a few days ago, we are back in Vicksburg Mississippi, getting ready for leaving for our next SPIKE, which is in New York City.  We are leaving for Brooklyn tomorrow morning in our 15 Passenger van.  Today we had our Clearance Meeting which is when each team presents on what they are going to do on their next SPIKE.  Our team will be working at a Disaster Recovery Center (though this one is not in a tent! yay!)  and living in an extended stay hotel. 

I have a new team member!  A few days ago, staff decided to take a member from teams that had a lot of people and tranfer them to a smaller teams so that the teams would be more even.  We got a guy named Zack, who I am somewhat familiar with, so I'm excited that he is now on Ocean 7 with us!

Our team leader is being a bit stricter on the amount of stuff we are allowed to bring on our SPIKE, which is a good thing because I always bring too much stuff. I managed to pack everything I need (plus a little extra) in two bags; my red bag and my black backpack.  Of course I will also be bringing a sleeping bag, pillow, and my government laptop which I will most likely be using at "work" everyday. 

More good news is that I now have the appropraite clothing for cold weather.  When we were deployed to New York for Sandy we were in Georgia at the time and had no idea we were going to be serving somewhere so cold because New York in technically not in the Southern Region. 

Other than having a slight cough/cold, things are going well here.
Wish us luck for traveling to Tennesee tomorrow on our way to NYC!