My favorite tree on CHU campus showing all of fall's colors.
Hello all!
On Sunday I got to volunteer at the Humane Society of the South Platte Valley with a group of corps members. All of us miss our pets so much! Being with the cats and dogs there was a temporary fix, but I think it made us all miss our pets even more when all was said and done. It's a very nice facility; I highly recommend a visit there to anyone in the Denver area looking for a pet! There were so many great animals. I also recommend it as a volunteer opportunity to future AmeriCorps members. They had us alternating between doing chores (usually cleaning) and walking the dogs, so we never got burned out on one particular task.
On Monday I got to help out at the Food Bank of the Rockies with my temporary team and a few others. I was amazed at its magnitude! It was a warehouse FULL of food, with forklifts buzzing around and volunteers everywhere. We worked on distribution, which meant going around filling orders that organizations in need had placed. We wheeled huge carts around through the aisles looking for the items on the lists... like extreme grocery shopping. It's important that all of the items organizations request are in one place and ready to be picked up. I definitely recommend this as an ISP to future CM's, but keep in mind that they are open every weekday but only one Saturday a month.
My favorite training this week was diversity training. AmeriCorps NCCC is a very intentionally diverse program, so the staff created a day focused on how we can best embrace and take advantage of all the diversity here. The people who led the day made it very fun and interactive. The best part was that discussing diversity helped us all to open up with each other. That was really exciting! Deeper connections among us are beginning to happen naturally, too. I feel very close with Fire Unit, and on Friday I will get to find out who my primary team is. I'm really excited to begin establishing relationships with my primary teammates and team leader; those relationships will be very crucial to our success this year. I'm also just itching to know who I'm with and what we'll be doing!
My favorite thing about AmeriCorps NCCC so far is definitely the people. We are all practically strangers, but we have two things in common: we want to help people and we want to grow. Being in an environment where those two goals are so prevalent is really inspiring.
Today we were planning on exploring Rocky Mountain National Park, but the weather forecast was iffy so we went to Chatauqua Park in Boulder instead. That's the same park I went to on my first hiking excursion. This time, I chose a moderate hike on the First and Second Flat Iron Trail. I was really glad that I pushed myself, it was worth the effort! Some of the best parts of the hike in no particular order: I learned that Chatauqua is the oldest city park in the nation. A chipmunk ate out of my hand like I was Snow White! Our unit leader Jolie brought her beautiful dog, Sunshine Merryweather. There was free hot chocolate in the visitor's center at the end.
Me and America (my roomate) on our way down the mountain. The journey down is much faster than the journey up! You can see other parts of the flat irons behind us.
After our hike, we got to explore Boulder a little bit. It is such a cute town! While in the Pearl Street Mall area I saw a great street performer and explored a three story book store. After that we got a tour of the Celestial Seasonings tea factory! All of their tea is made here in Boulder. I learned a lot about tea, and they had a great sample bar.
Our very flexible street performer. See the box on the left and the tube on the right? He fit himself into those! In this picture, he's just warming up!
Great quotes lined the bottom of one of the shops we walked past.
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