What I've Been Doing

“You’re going to go home and find you can’t tell people what you’ve been doing…
Your friends are going to say to you, You did what?... Are you
crazy?”
--Norma Dean, ASP Volunteer from 1969-2000

That being said, I’m still going to try. First let me say, I miss you all, and I’m sorry I can’t keep in closer contact. My cell phone has no signal at all—if you left me a message, I won’t get it until the end of the summer. I have some access to email, if you want to contact me that way. I probably will not be checking Facebook very often—we have dial-up, and with all the pictures, it takes forever and a half to load a page. But my mailing address is on there, if you want to send me letters or anything!

Now then. A quick description of Appalachia Service Project might be a nice start. ASP is an emergency home-repair ministry, focusing not just on providing quality home repair, but on developing lasting relationships between families, volunteers, and staff members. As staff, our responsibilities are incredible—they break down to: finding families to work for, ensuring we legally can build for them (permits, zoning, etc.), working with volunteers, providing food and quality programming for volunteers, and overseeing 8 weeks worth of construction projects, all the while working within a very limited budget. While most of the work is shared between 4-5 staffers per county, each staffer is assigned an additional specific job—this summer, I am Lee County’s Finance Coordinator (I like saying that… Finance Coordinator….). All receipts, bills, invoices, merchandise orders, volunteer fees, and payments come to me.

But backing up, training was quite possibly the busiest week I have ever experienced in my life thus far, although it was so structured most of the time that I could go from one hour-long session to the next without thinking too much. It was kind of like going to class, except we sat on rocking chairs on the porch or on couches in the lodge, or on the floor. Breakfast was usually at 7 am, and lights out was at 11—in between, the day was pretty packed. In sessions, we learned about everything construction, moving from foundations to floors to walls to doors and windows to the roof, and expanding on manufactured housing and drainage issues we might face in Appalachia. We even touched on electrical and plumbing. Basically, I could contract a house if I had to. We also had to discuss Appalachian economic issues, practice techniques for handling the spiritual/relational aspect of the ministry, learn basic large vehicle maintenance (I can change a spare tire now, and check all kinds of fluids!), and what to do if we discover domestic violence or abuse at one of our homes. There were sometimes up to 6 or so hours of sessions in one day.

Mixed into these sessions was the more active stuff. We had a hands-on day where we actually built wall panels and part of a roof for practice, a “Sunday Driving” day to practice maneuvering old, large vehicles on narrow gravel roads, and a team building day at a nearby park just to have fun with other staff members working through obstacle courses and whatnot. There were three “Culture Nights” as well: a bluegrass band, a square dance band/caller (TONS of fun!) and a fiddler. On “Sim Day,” we actually drove around to real ASP houses, where returning staff members acted out possible scenarios we might face in approaching a worksite, and we had to practice/ discuss how to deal with them. (Things like: a chauvinistic group leader is excluding female volunteers, the group decides to start projects not already agreed upon, the group is lazy, or the group isn’t at the work sight.) During the summer mornings and afternoons, most of my time will be spent driving from one house to the next, making sure everything is going well with the groups, the construction is completed to code, and the families’ needs are being met to the best of our ability, so that was good practice.

Overall, training wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t all amazing. At the beginning, I still had my final exam hanging over my head, so I kept running back to my room to study instead of bonding with the rest of the staff members and learning their names. I wish that hadn’t been the case—as I am, I am not an easy person to get to know; I do not open up to people very easily, so I should have put in the effort immediately instead of waiting until after my exam was taken. People all week were raving about the fantastic deep conversations they’d been having with new people they’d met—I can’t say I experienced the same until the last night of training when Tim and I caught each other up on our lives since High School.

And this has been a very awkward transition for me. I came here pretty much directly from school—it would have been nice to have a few days, or weeks even, at home with my family like everyone else, or some more time at school to finish everything at a normal pace and enjoy myself a bit more. I’ve been a little homesick and missing people—if I’m thinking about other people far away, I can nearly shut down socially. Even at school, I was close to my family, but Jonesville, VA is pretty darn far away from Chicago or Schaumburg, IL.

Speaking of Jonesville, aka my home for the summer, this is one of ASP’s year-round centers. That means it’s awesome. Lots of space, and less work for us because a lot is already set up (accounts at gas stations, and grocery and hardware stores in the area, are already taken care of). And since training happened here, the other staffers had to clean everything before they left for their own counties. And did I mention the 5 of us are sharing a 4 bedroom apartment with 2 bathrooms and a combination kitchen, dining room, and living room? I have my own room. *brushes shoulders off* This is the Hilton compared to the center in Hancock county that we helped out last weekend. That staff is working out of an abandoned hospital—it was a mess. Ceiling tiles falling in, water damage and black mold, three legged tables, expired medical supplies, a fridge full of rotten food, furniture and mattresses piled everywhere at random, dust and dirt and grime… by the end of this week, that hospital is going to be an awesome ASP center, I’m sure, but with all the clean up to do, the staff was grateful for our help.

Right now is set-up week. My amazing staff (Craig, Stephen, Britt and Kristina) and I have been hanging up signs, organizing everything for the volunteers, and most importantly, selecting homes for the summer. All day yesterday, I drove around with Craig doing IHVs (Initial Home Visits), talking to the family, taking notes. The phone here rings off the hook with people wanting help—we have over 100 applications, we have to say, as of right now we cannot say whether or not we’ll be able to work on your house, but we’re doing our best. It’s heartbreaking sometimes, and frustrating. But by the end of this week, we’ll have all the homes for week 1 signed. That’s when the real work starts.