April Fooled.

 

Fooled. Well, it looks like we have been fooled! No worries, here in FEMA Corps we are SUPER flexible and adaptable. We are here in Maryland, however we are not staying on the Emmitsburg campus because there was not enough room for us to stay there. We are staying about 40 minutes outside of Emmitsburg in Frederick.  It's a great place with A LOT of stuff to do!  Although we are not staying on campus, we are permitted to use their Gym facilities, which means after work today there is an indoor heated pool waiting for me!  Another change to this SPIKE is that we will no longer be going to Boston for the later portion of the SPIKE, but rather staying the entire time in Emmitsburg at the Emergency Management Institute.  However, knowing this program, that could change at any moment.  Another thing that we were fooled on was the date we would be leaving for Maryland.  We ended up staying on campus an extra day to give staff time to sort out our housing and food situation.  We ended up using that extra day to do an Individual Service program at the local cemetary, which brings me to my next segment....

 

POISON. I have been suffering from Poison Ivy for the last two weeks. I acquired poison ivy at the cemetary while doing an ISP with my team.  It was our job to de-weed the trees of the invasive plant species.  Let me point out that I am the only person on my team that lives on the west coast, and therefore, even though I was a Girl Scout for 14 years, I failed to identify the poison ivy vines.  I still have no idea what they look like...I guess I should look that up. Anyway, I was the only one with poison ivy and it got so bad that I did not go to work and instead took a trip to the ER and got myself some steroids.  I am really hoping this works because I have never experienced this much itching in all my life! I have it predominantly on my arms, and also have it on my stomach and legs. 

 

Work. Well service I suppose.  I am working at the Emergency Management Institute in Emmitsburg Maryland.  We are mostly split up and working in different sections.  I am working with my teammates Tyler and Zack in the Distance Learning Section. We are working as administrators for the FEMA Employee Knowledge Center, which is where FEMA Employees take trainings and classes.  We are basically doing data entry, so I am really getting better at typing!

 

 

Statue at our work site

 

A moment. You may have seen a news story in the new recently about an AmeriCorps NCCC member who was shot and killed outside of his SPIKE housing in New Orleans.  His name was Joseph, and he was a member of the Southern Region's traditional NCCC Class 19B.  Although Ocean 7 did not personally know Joseph, we were saddened to hear that such a tragic thing could happen to one of us.  We wish his team, family, and friends the best as they try to sort out their thoughts and feelings during this confusing time. Ocean 7 participated in honoring Josephs life and service by wearing our gray uniform instead of our blue uniform, and we will continue to keep those who knew him in our thoughts and prayers. 

 

Community This is my teams LAST deployment, and we are finally beginning to do stuff together as a team and getting involved in the community which is great and a lot easier to do now that we no longer live in New York City.  We have reduced our work days to 4 in order to have the option of  serving more in our community.  During our first week here we volunteered at the "Walk for MS" in downtown Frederick.  It was tons of fun! We also scored free minor league baseball tickets for a game that day.  Their team is called the Frederick Keys, and we won!

This past weekend a few in my team went to DC Central Kitchen and helped prepare 5,000 meals! (I peeled a TON of carrots!) It was a lot of fun and we are planning to go back next week.

 

 

 

 

As well as serving at DC Central Kitchen, my team also headed to DC and was part of the National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade! I got to steer and push "Buddy", a character on the show "Dinosaur Train" on PBS Kids! It was super fun to be a part of the parade, and we even got to be on TV and see some cool people, like Miss America and whatnot. Afterward, we headed to the to Tidal Basin and picked up trash and recycled for a hew hours with the National Parks Service!

 

 

We have a lot more lined up to do in the community for the next two months!