I just got back from spring break '010, which I spent in Washington, D.C. on a service trip! It was so much fun!
We worked with four organizations:
1. Food & Friends : a meals-on-wheels type thing that caters specifically to the terminally ill and to their specific nutritional needs. For a long time they served only patients with HIV/AIDS. We helped there throughout the week by delivering meals, packing groceries, or packing meals. It was a super fun place to volunteer at because everyone there was really kind and you could tell that everyone involved believed in the mission of, and the importance of food and friends.
2. Sasha Bruce Foundation : this was a small house downtown that houses eight kids from ages 16-18 that can no longer live at home for whatever reason. Each border has his own apartment, with a kitchen. They're each responsible for cleaning and cooking for themselves, and they must go to school and have a job. While there we helped them landscape/beautify the outside by cleaning/mulching/gardening. It was dirty.
http://www.sashabruce.org/
3. PreventionWorks! : this is a "harm-reduction" non-profit that focuses on reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS among injection-drug users (IDU's). We made safe-sex kits, "wound care" kits (which were for safer heroin use), and helped with a clothing drive. PreventionWorks! serves DC, and parts of VA and MD with its syringe-exchange mobile unit.
4. CityCamp! I'm not really sure what this program was about, it incorporated service with learning and fun! We pretty much just spent an afternoon playing with kids, on their last day of camp. It was fun. We played streetball.
Here are some photogs!
Eating lunch in S.C!
Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church! A great place in which to play sardines!!
A Masonic Temple a block away from our d.c. home. GIANT sphynx statues. Very mysterious.
Dogwood?
Me and Mat.
Ingrid (front) fits right in with our fellow elementary-aged volunteers!
At Food & Friends, they really love their volunteers!
Hard at work at the Sasha Bruce house.
Button flower.
Etch-a-sketch.
Piano.
This is a "Vote for Senator Branch!" photograph.
Two of my friends building a house of cards!!!!!!!
The Washington Monument on a beautful spring day.
At the national mall, the garbage trucks were running. And they were loud.
Sarah and I ate at this DELICIOUS cafe called Zorba's. It was authentic Greek, and this was the first time I'd ever been to a Greek restaurant. It was delicious (see yummy looking falafel above.)
At the national mall, Sarah came up to visit me for a while which was AWESOME. I had so much fun with her!!!
At the Smithsonian, we tried SO HARD to get this picture. It didn't quite work out, but it was still fun. And we're still cute.
This is my new friend Erin. Her last name ends in "-nagle" and is pronounced like "Nagel." Isn't that weird?? She's really nice, though. Despite her weird last name.
