Rutgers AWB: Restoring Hope in Joplin, MO

To say this trip was a life changing experience is an understatement. Going into the trip, all members shared the same feelings of excitement, nervousness and anticipation. During the pre-trip meetings and dinner we all just knew that we were going to have an amazing time together, and an amazing time is what we had. From the second we stepped on the airport there was an instant bond between the thirteen of us. All of us shared the common notion of ultimately making an impact in someway on this trip. Although upon arriving our expectations of what we were doing on the trip fell short, the outcome was much more than we could all imagine. We stayed in a volunteer house that definitely needed some fixing up in itself. So we spent the week completely restoring this volunteer house from the bottom up. We had a wonderful leader, Scott, who volunteered to guide us in our rebuilding and restoring for the entire week. He told us that after three years this volunteer house would in fact be donated to a family from Joplin in need of a place to call home. Even though we expected to be volunteering in several different houses, we all instantly became attached to this volunteer house and poured our hearts and souls into every detail. Our motivation was making this a beautiful house for future volunteers to enjoy, and with the ultimate end of a deserving family to inhabit it. Every night at reflection, we all shared common feelings and findings during our work. With our big hearts and open minds, we slowly became a family. No matter what task was handed to us, we collectively joined together to turn this house into a home. Every single person on this trip was vital in that they we all individually brought something different to the table. Not once was there a moment where one of us wasn't offering the other help or expressing words of encouragement. When touring the destruction from the tornado we also shared a sense of hope as well as sorrow for the loss of a beautiful city. Regardless, nothing would stray us away from the positive attitudes we all shared. The community of Joplin was resilient, no one would let a tornado and its destruction stand in the way of the love for their community and life. Carrying on their positive morale, the 13 of us always kept "hope" in our hearts and minds. Rutgers Alternative Winter Breaks 2012, Restoring Hope in Joplin, MO: love every single one of you. And thank you all so much for creating endless memories that will never fade, and that will continue on forever.

Always,
Dina

Day 2 - We're Going on an Adventure, to find Mountain Momma

Wake up, brush our teeth, pack our lunches and get out the door. Our second day going to Oak Hills Elementary started off feeling the same as the first, until we reached the parking lot and realized we weren’t quite ready to step out into the thirty-degree weather at nine in the morning. So, after taking our time to get out of the comfortably heated cars, we finally made our way back to the building extension where there was still more painting to be done. We were welcomed on our second day with the same group as Monday; Dave, with a big smile on his face as he tried to remember all of our names, Crash, Daniel, and Dillon, all who seemed to be waking up at the same lagging speed as our group. We also had been accompanied this day by John Flack, a representative from Americorp, who would oversee our progress and the working habits of the SALS employees for the rest of the week. John, being a friendly and insightful West Virginia native, would also be one of our excursion leaders later in the week and a close friend to our Rutgers ASB family.

After the morning introductions, we went to work. Our group had split the same as Monday with half remaining in the warm, insulated, HEATED extension building to continue painting while the rest were sent to the dark, dust filled, and freezing cold elementary school. Upon grabbing our brooms and preparing to sweep the place clean, the Florida International University (FIU) alternative break students accompanied us. Their presence in the school was beneficial in helping to sweep as members of our group began filtering to the warmer extension building to help with painting. Things balanced out and we had a set group in each location. By the end of the day, the painters had put finishing touches on the first and second coat of paint while the sweepers had emptied desk filled rooms and discovered the school’s huge second floor auditorium.

Upon returning back to base camp, our group was eager to adventure, after all, we didn’t come to wild West Virginia to stay in and play charades all day. SALS members had mentioned an old coalmine hidden in the backwoods of Beards Fork and without thinking twice about it we jumped on the road and began walking. Knowing how much mining and coal meant to the WV population, we wanted to get a little taste for ourselves of what the fuss was all about.

We strolled down the holler passing by houses lined up feet apart from each other without a front yard between their doors and the street we walked on. These houses were generational, meaning the families living in them today are descendants of the people who lived in them dating years back. They were built during times of segregation and the community had been cut in half with the first stretch of houses white families and the other black with one mixed couple living ironically on the corner of the streets. Our group approached the fork in the road, we had to determine which way would bring us to the coal mine. By instinct, we continued our hike to the right without any hesitation to our decision.

At the end of the community was a chapel and the road became dirt, seemingly patted down by construction vehicles. We were entering the wilderness of West Virginia. The trail was flat for the first five hundred paces of our trip, but we figured out where WVU got their Moutaineer mascot from very quickly as we began climbing. We finally got the adventure we asked for as we trekked up the uninhabited mountain and crossed over a stream by means of an improvised bridge. The quiet of the mountain was eerie. The only life forms to be found were the hawks gliding above us.

It was clear we weren’t the first to voyage this far along the trail as we came across countless pieces of litter ranging from soda cans, to a mini fridge, to a car. There was a broken down easy-bake oven that was dropped in the brush off the side of the trail deep in the woods. With the day growing later and our stomachs not getting any fuller, we followed good instinct and turned back down the mountain before reaching the coal mine. We briefly caught our breaths and had a photo shoot of the literal “face” of the mountain. We deemed her, “Mountain Momma.”

We returned to the start of the trail in disappointment we couldn’t reach the finish line and see a real coalmine. It was decided that we would hike the trail again leaving ourselves more time. As we retraced our steps down the holler, a tall man exited his house to get a glimpse of our tourist group from his porch. He was nice and told us all about his little community, how he had grown up in the same house all his life and raised his kids likewise. He was proud to mention how his sons had gone to the University, moved out of Beards Fork and made names for themselves in their respective careers. He also wanted to know a good deal about us, but we were too caught up in his story to even speak. Before parting ways with the kind man, we told him how we were frustrated that we didn't reach the coalmine at the end of the path.  To our dismay, he told us our mistake and how to get there.  “You shoulda’ turned left at the fork!” We had a good reflection that night after that long day.

Day 1- Welcome to Oak Hills Elementary!

We awoke with the roosters at the crack of dawn to venture into the unexpected.  It was our first day of work with SALS and none of us had any idea what to expect.  Bag lunches and the seven thirty alarm clocks were going to take some getting used to, but luckily today we were all eager to discover what exactly we would be doing for the next five days.

As we arrived at the work site after a thirty-minute drive, we were greeted by a run-down elementary school, Oakhill Elementary, and our “boss” for the week, Dave.  During the first half of the day we taped and primed a room that is going to become a new health clinic at Oakhill. After our lunch and a nice walk through the snow, yes, SNOW, we were split up into two groups; one group, who stayed and painted the room, and the other group who was going to begin cleaning and sweeping up the left over remains from the vandalized elementary school. Before entering the school everyone seemed a bit anxious, not knowing what was going to be behind those two old school doors. Once we entered and saw the hallways and classrooms in ruins, we knew we were going to have our work cut out for us this week, but also an extensive amount of ground to cover in exploration.

We started in the school cafeteria where the ceiling fell in and coated the floors with debris. The Disney cartoon characters painted on the walls had been smashed in by the vandals. It was saddening to think that children who have spent their school years in the cafeteria laughing and eating lunch, could never come back to cherish those memories because they had been ruined.  We all were intrigued by the remains that seemed to have just been left by the teachers before the school closed down. We found grade books, posters, textbooks, and many belongings from one particular child Alisha Evans; by the end of the day it felt as if we almost knew him.  Meanwhile, the entire room had been painted by the end of the day and was not even recognizable. Together, the twelve of us had made immense progress on the school and the future health clinic.  We also met our SALS crew, Daniel, Andrew (Crash), and Dillon, who we would be working alongside for the entire week. All of us longed to get to know them, hear their stories, and learn the culture of West Virginia through them.

Our first day ended with a charades game against Boston University, which OF COURSE Rutgers beat them! All in all our first day was memorable and already different from anything I had ever experienced in my entire life. I already bonded with each and every one of the people on the trip and we still had a whole week together! 

Take Me Home, Mountain Mama, to the Wild and Wonderful West Virginia!

When I pictured myself on a Spring Break in college, West Virginia was probably the last state that came to mind. I envisioned myself laying on a warm beach, tropical drink in hand, with a bunch of friends, but little did I know I was about to embark on a journey way deeper than the stereotypical college spring break. A few days before I started packing for the trip, I realized aside from being unsure about my packing list, I was also unsure about this trip in general. I was excited to do community service and meet people, but as Sunday started creeping up on me I started wondering if I would like the people I would be forced into spending the next week with or if this experience actually would change my life for the better just as I anticipated it would. Now, sitting here two weeks later writing this blog, I laugh at those fears and insecurities I had in the beginning, because my trip to West Virginia was by far one of the best weeks of my entire life and exceeded my expectations in each and every way. But, even though I could go on all day about the new person I had become by the end of this trip, and the impact we all made on the people of West Virginia, and, of course, each other, I cannot start there, because just like every other good story, I must start from the beginning.

It was Sunday morning, before the sun had even begun to come up and we were standing in front of the Student Center unsuspecting of what the next week of our lives was going to entail. Though we had spent the last five Sundays together through countless conversations and icebreakers, the 12 of us still felt like strangers to one another. Looking back on it now, we were not at all prepared for the twelve hour drive that awaited us or the next life changing six days that would follow. We had finally got on the road and then made our very first bathroom break on Easton Ave at the Dunkin Donuts, five minutes outside of Rutgers University. Our breakfast there would have to carry us on until we reached the infamous DJ's diner right on the outskirts of West Virginia.

After three hours of indulging ourselves in fried foods and spilled milkshakes (and famous West Virginian biscuits with gravy), we had rolled into our destination: West Virginia. It became apparent we were no longer in the north. Riding through the rough terrain on beaten down roads, it was clear where the "wild" of West Virginia came, but we were yet to see anything wonderful aside from a father riding his ATV down the two way highway with his four year old daughter sitting on the handlebars. 

Even though we had been forewarned about the poverty in West Virginia, none of us realized how terrible the circumstances actually were. As we drove along a West Virginia "highway" we saw everything from trailer parks to homes being kept together by just one shingle. We drove through "unincorporated towns" which was a foreign concept to all of us. These shady towns do not have a municipal government, police officers, or even a local schooling system. Like the majority of West Virginia, and its poverty, these towns are not only hidden by mountains and forests, they are forgotten.

As we wound down the stretch of the highway, we approached the welcoming sign "Beards Fork, 2 Miles, Turn right." If having just survived the unmaintained highway we were on for the last forty minutes wasn't enough, we now had to voyage down a two mile, single lane "holler" that led us into the great unknown where we would be spending the next six nights together. Pulling up to the fenced in lodge, we knew we had arrived at the Southern Appalachian Labor School (SALS). By this point, we had already caught a glimpse of some of the poverty stricken areas of West Virginia and barely had a hint of what to expect. We had driven for hours and through four different states. Our personalities had started to show and we had begun to know one another. We were curious, anxious, ready for whatever was next. It was at this moment that our unforgettable week began.

The Tale Comes To A Turn

And so here we are. We were all some-ones who became the ASB Tennessee 2011 family. We discovered who we are through each other and met others along the way that made it into our story. Our somewhere became Maryville, Tennessee, the Snowbird Cherokee Reservation, Once Upon A Time Breakaway, Linda's home, Pat's home, the beautiful trails, the hootenanny. Our some-ones were Arleen and Ed, Ian, Little Blue, Queeny, Tiger, Binky, CSU, SMU, Winthrup University, Wanda, Scott, Chase, Linda, Nelly, Pat, and the list goes on. As we rode back down the windy gravel road, we knew that our fairy-tale had not ended, we would just be bringing our some-ones and somewheres to another place spreading the goodness and the love that we had found and help others to find that same spirit. Our story has not come to an end. We will forever be connected by the memories we created and the souls we touched. We will live and volunteer happily ever after.  

Fist Pump Friday?

It was the last morning of our last full day. We had spent the entire week pinching ourselves, asking incredulously, could this possibly be real? Now we wished more than ever for that infinite fairy tale ending, where we all lived Happily Ever After in the mountains of Tennessee with Ed and Arleen, Little Blue and the three cats. As we sat at breakfast that morning, the sun rising over the left side of the mountain range still blue in the morning mist we giggled at how picturesque our fairy tale was.

"Play"

Our first stop was the Sequoyah Museum. The museum commemorated the man Sequoyah (which translates to "Pig Foot") who single-handedly formulated a written language for the Cherokee. Without a formal education, Sequoyah created the language by listening to people around him speak. He then came up with an 86 symbol syllabary.

"Work"

The museum is building a trail along the river and that pesky privet weed has been growing for more than twenty-five years unchecked. Though at times it took four people tugging and ripping at the tree-sized weed, the four schools managed to clear out a remarkable area for the new trail.

"Play"

After returning back to Once Upon A Time and cleaning up a bit, we headed back out for the big Hootenanny. What a release of energy! From the outside, the building looks like an old elementary school. That's because that's exactly what it is. From the inside, however, the space explodes with music from every direction. People travel from as much as three hours away to hear the performers, some well known and some just being discovered. We danced ourselves into the ground...literally. We actually broke through a couple floor boards! Some incorporated the jersey fist pump (for comic relief, ONLY) and others whipped out some fancy Irish step-dancing moves. By the end of the night, we had been converted to the Hootenanny and its ways.

And then it was time to face the music (heh). It was time to pack up and leave our magic place and get ready to say goodbye to our new found second family.

Thursday Thrills

"Work"

Thursday morning found the ASB 2011 troupe in the Chickasaw Tennessee State Park. Here we met the sole park ranger responsible for clean up and security for the entire park. The amount of thanks we received before we had even done any work was incredible. The Snowbird Cherokee Women's Society had sent literally an entire truck full of baked goods, drinks, and snacks. We were given reusable shopping bags, pens, keychains, flashlights, and hand sanitizer packs that read, "Keep Monroe County Beautiful". The ranger explained to us just how helpful the Alternative Break groups have been in helping to make that happen. When the groups started coming, the park was filled with insurmountable amounts of trash. Each year, the amount of trash being found has gone done incrementally. The cleaner the park becomes the cleaner people want to keep it!

We collected unbelievable amounts of trash. Most of it of the expected variety-- cans, bottles, food containers, etc. Some of us, however, were lucky enough to find some trash "treasures" (and to those brave souls who picked it up and dispensed of it, we salute you). Collectively we picked up enough trash to fill the back of a semi-truck!

"Play"

By the middle of the afternoon, the sun graced us with its presence. It was a lovely seventy-five degrees. The water glittered and shone as we approached the Great Rope Swing. After some timidity, most of the group climbed the tree trunk, grabbed the rope, and swung out up to fifteen in the air before plunking into the very cold water below.

After another great dinner, we welcomed a guest speaker, a Cherokee woman who was a good friend of Ed and Arleen. She told us so many wonderful Cherokee stories and also shared more details of just how tragic the Trail of Tears was. Here is my summarized version of one of my favorite lessons she shared with us:

One day, a grandfather was talking with his grandson. "Grandson, I have a battle going on inside my heart."
The grandson became very concerned and asked his grandfather if he was sick.
So the grandfather explained further, "Inside my heart there are two wolves. One wolf brings me anger, sadness, weakness, despair, and violence. The other wolf he battles brings me joy, peace, delight, courage and happiness."
So then the grandson asked his grandfather, "Grandfather, which wolf is winning?"
The grandfather smiled and looked at his grandson, "The one I choose to feed."

This story resonated so deeply with me because it encompassed a huge reason for why our trip had been so meaningful. We had each chosen to feed the good wolf inside of us. That goodness had spread and was feeding that good wolf in every other person we met and was being given back to each one of us tenfold. That bad wolf didn't have a chance.

Some Highlights From Our Day Off...

Wednesday was our day off. To take a break from all the written stuff, I've put together the basics of the day in picture form. 

(Pictures courtesy of Trini Head)

Entering The Lost Sea, one of the largest underground lakes in the world. 

View from inside the cave on the way to the Lost Sea. 

Taking laundry very seriously.

Beautiful Maryville for dinner!

Beautiful people share dinner at Tomato Head Cafe.

We've been graffitied by Colorado State! (They even got our slogan right)

No comment. 

Arleen teaches the group to make jam at Jam Session. We all came home with 

our own jar of homemade blackberry jam. 

Bonfire and s'mores and story time. 

Our own Will wrote his own brilliant story.