Saturday, February 24, 2007

LIFE AT HOGC

I thought I would write a little bit about the day-to-day life here at Hands On, for those who are coming down to volunteer and those who are wondering what in the world I am doing down here. Each day, crews go out to various job sites to do various things. At dinner each night, volunteers put their names down for what they would like to do the next day. You can sign up for something new each day, or you can work on the same task for a number of days. Just a few examples are mold removal, gutting, working at the Humane Society, framing, drywall, tutoring, working at the Boys and Girls Club, working in a community garden, painting a mural, and other various tasks that may arise. For example, today I was on a crew that helped a woman move boxes, furniture, and other items out of her water-damaged house and into a U-Haul, then unloaded it into a storage locker she had rented. This is just one example of many where a citizen asks for help with a specific task, and Hands On helps them out.

There are a lot of other things that occur at dinner each night. Aside from the regular job board, there are other duties that people sign up for at dinner. Among them are preparing breakfast, breakfast clean-up, dinner preparation, and dinner clean-up for the following day. There is also the job of being the "Ira," who picks up/drops off volunteers at the airport, jobsites, or anywhere else they might need to get to. Apparently there was a volunteer named Ira who was here who was so excited to have just gotten his drivers license that all he wanted to do was drive people around, so they named the job after him.

Another thing that occurs at dinner is that any new volunteers introduce themselves, usually saying where they are from, how they found out about Hands On Gulf Coast, and some silly question, like "What is your favorite fruit?" This is also when volunteers who are leaving the next day say their goodbyes and talk about their experience at Hands On.


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