Today I got a lot of information about my Round 1 project and my team roles. It's really exciting!
As I said before, my team and I are headed to Oklahoma City to work with Habitat for Humanity. Central Oklahoma Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit, ecumenical (meaning they serve people from all backgrounds) Christian housing ministry working in partnership with God and the community to build simple, decent, affordable housing, and to provide hope for responsible, hard-working, limited income families living in substandard conditions. They've constructed 660 new houses in the history of thier affiliate. Their new houses are some of the most energy efficient houses ever built in Oklahoma! They are a very experienced project sponsor; they've worked with 6 AmeriCorps NCCC teams since 2010. They are requesting our teams to come because they are seeing an increase of application for families that are in need of housing. They'll be providing housing for more families and seeing an increase in the number of three-week "blitz builds" that are funded by local businesses. During our time there we'll be helping them build new houses and rehab old ones. They'll also be training us to play more of a leadership role in helping lead volunteer groups along side site supervisors.
We'll be staying in a nice apartment complex fairly close to the Habitat for Humanity offices. We'll have two two-bedroom apartments, one for males and the other for females. We'll all still eat together and spend time together, though. We'll have on-site internet, television, laundry and phone service! All luxuries in NCCC. We'll also be close enough to the city to get many of our ISP hours done.
As Service Learning Initiator I'll be responsible for facilitating my team's service learning experiences. NCCC defines service learning as corps members having the opportunity to gain knowledge and skills through their service and understand the impact of that service. We'll use the PARC model of preparation, action, reflection and celebration. So basically, I'll plan activities and initiate conversations that will help us all get as much as we can out of what we're doing. I'm really excited to have this role! I'm glad to have the chance to benefit my teammates and learn more about service learning. Bruce is also an SLI, so we'll work together!
I also got assigned to be the ISP Coordinator with Meghan. It's a very simple job, basically we'll just help our team find Independent Service Projects to do in order to fulfill their hour requirements and engage in the community.
As Birthday POC, I get to make sure that everyone feels special on their special day! There was no training for that because it's not a major role. But I'm still really excited about it. =)
Contrary to what I said yesterday, I just found out that some teams in my region are going to be deployed to respond to Hurricane Sandy. As of yet, my team is not one of those. We're all kind of waiting for more news. I don't know how I feel about it. I'm getting really excited about my Habitat for Humanity project, it seems like it would be a great first round. But at the same time, it'd really be an honor to respond to a disaster and I'd love to help out. We'll see! Please keep all the responding CM's in your prayers.
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