New link to photos

I put a link to photos from this round on the right side of the blog. I have also put up the last of the photos form Tulsa. So check them out.

Were Has the Time Gone?

There is only one week left in third round! I can't believe that the last two months have gone by so fast. Tomorrow is our preference of our drum circle here at DCH, which should be a lot of fun. My team and I have spent the last month learning about different beets and perfecting two of them. One is the Kuku from Africa and the other is the Bomba from Porto Rico. I love playing the drums and am thinking about finding a group to play with or even take lessons when I get out of NCCC. Along with our drumming will are also going to have a slid show and talk about our experience at DCH. We will also be preforming at the community meeting in front of the whole corps, which will be an experience within its self.

We have finished the library expect for cataloging the books, but we are over half way done. Hopefully we will be able to finish before we leave but the cataloging is taking longer than we thought. We have just finished the children's books. Besides this the library/computer lab is up and running. It has been great to see the kids and teachers use the library and how excited they are that they can check out the books.

Two weekends ago my team and I helped with Coolfax For Kids which was as street clean up sponsored by DCH. Not only did they want to clean up a section of Colfax Ave. (where the home is located) but also get the kids at the home and the community involved in volunteering. Even though it was a Saturday it was still fun to be out volunteering and interacting with people from the community. This past weekend I went to Boulder on Sunday for Earth Fest. I went with Kristy, Cate, and Shannon. It was fun to get out of the Dorms and do something different. Earth Fest wasn't that big but there was still some interesting booths.

Halfway Through Third Round

I am now halfway through my third round project at the Denver Children's Home. I love the project and the people we are working with. DCH is the oldest non-profit in Denver. It is broken into three different parts. One part of the Home is resedental where up to 30 or so kids live, go to school, and go to therapy. Another aspect of the program is Day treatment where children go to school and get therapy. The last group of kids just goes to school. Most kids stay for about three months but after being here for a month I can see why they are trying to get funding to increase the amount of time children are able to stay here. The kids are ages 11 to 18 and come from traumatic living situations. All of of the kids also come from foster families and have been to other detention centers or even to jail.

We help the teachers in their classrooms and we have been helping to set up their new library. There has been no library for the past year because it has been under construction. We have been sorting the books from their former library and the 15 boxes of books that were donated by borders. Hopefully soon we will be able to start cataloging them into the computer.

This past weekend we went to a Colorado Rockies baseball game. Water 1 came down from Boulder, part of the Fire 5 (the other team that is staying on campus) and some of the TLs all went to the game. It was a blast, even if we were sitting in the nose bleed section.

Catching Up on the End of Second Round

So I know that I haven't written on here in a long time and I apologize to those of you who have gotten on to read something new when there wasn't anything. I am now halfway through my third round project. Which means that there is less than four months left in the program. I know its hard to believe right? I found out yesterday that my permanent team and I will be going back to LA for fourth round. I am not sure how I feel about this. I was kind of looking forward to going somewhere new and I am not looking forward to the heat but what can you do. I will know Monday or Tuesday what project I will be doing.

The end of our time in Tulsa was non eventful but rewarding. All in all my team completed about 3,240 tax returns and saved our clients over $600,000 in tax preparation fees. In all my team spent over 2,000 hours doing taxes! We left Tulsa the first week of March. The night we stayed in Goodland, KS was the first night in two months that I had slept on a bed. It was wonderful! Now don't get me wrong, the cots were not as bad as I thought they were going to be but nothing beats a real bed. Our sponsors took us out to dinner the last week we were there and they even cooked us dinner too!

During transition week besides having to do the debrief form Tulsa and the brief for the Denver Children's Home some of us played trampoline doge ball. It was a blast! The place was filled with large trampolines where you could jump or play. The Water unit also went roller blading at at a rink, which I have not done since middle school. A lot of of dress up as 70's 80's. Over all it was a fun going places and seeing friends on different teams.