"Will You Get Nailed?"

This was the title of a flyer that my team handed out to USC students last week.  One of City Year’s sponsors is CSX, which is a train shipping company.  They created flyers about train safety because almost once a year a person (usually a student) gets injured or killed by a train in Columbia.  One of the ways we give back to our sponsor is to pass out these flyers.  I guess no one for the company wanted to embarrass themselves outside the student center at USC.  It was interesting to see people’s faces and reactions when I handed them a flyer and said, “It’s about train safety,” or, “Don’t get nailed.” 

My six-day week started out strong and ended with a bang.  Last Saturday, we had our training day for Columbia Heroes, our middle school engagement program.  We hung out with middle school kids from 8:30 to 5:00.  It was a little like summer camp, and everyone had a headache, but I truly enjoyed learning about the kids on my team.  Kamilyah and I are in charge of 10 middle school students.  We have an awesome junior team leader, a high school student named Mo-Mo.  She knew how to take charge and she is way taller and more intimidating than me.  We will be seeing the Heroes once a month to do service projects and learn about social issues.  I think it will be a great year with them.

            Right after we got back to the office at 5:00, I changed into jeans and flip-flops and some of us headed right over to volunteer uptown at the Italian Festival. There were kids games, shopping, a live band, a silent auction, Tarantella dancing, food, of course, and photos in a gondola.  There were about 10 of us in red jackets (plus the authentic paddler) who decided to squeeze into a 2-person gondola in the middle of Main Street for a photo. 

Besides that, the night consisted of serving Italian sausage and meatball subs, having a dancing contest with the boys across the street selling Italian Ice, and getting free Tiramisu.  At 9:00 the event closed down and there was an abundance of leftover sausage subs, so being a starving volunteer who takes every opportunity for free stuff, I took a few home.  Even though it was 9:00 at the end of a 6-day week, we decided to continue the night by walking 10 blocks to The Music Crawl that was going on the in The Vista.  The boyfriend of our External Affairs manager and his band were playing at a bar there.  So we listened to his 40 minute set and walked back 10 blocks to our car.  I don’t know how we still had energy after a 14-hour day, but I think I was functioning on delirium.  It was a great day!

My Wonderful Team: Kelsey, Kenith, Team Leader Marcus, Ashley, and Me

If you are curious, this is a normal week for me:

Monday-Thursday:

• Up and moving by 5:20 A.M.  Breakfast and coffee on the way out the door.  Unfortunately, I went for off-brand coffee this past shopping trip and it is terrible. But, I refuse to waste it so I will get creative. 
• Greet the kids off the bus at 7:00 A.M with a high-five.  The 4-year-olds from Pre-K give the hardest high-fives.  We brace ourselves for stinging palms each day.
• Tutoring begins at 8:00.  I now have 9 students from 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th grade.  Everyone wants to be “in City Year.”  “Miss Emily, are you taking me today!?”  We go to the City Year room (a corner of the multi-purpose room) and spend at least 15-20 minutes reading together.  The rest of the 30 min session we will do something fun and write in a journal.
• Tuesdays and Wednesdays, we run the after-school program.  This is where the biggest headache of the week begins.  We spend 30 minutes with 30 wild kids in the gym.  Their favorite thing to do is take off their shoes, sprint, screaming, across the gym and body-slam into the padded wall and then fall to the ground.  Then we attempt to settle them down and get their homework done until 4:00.
• Each day I have a “lunch buddy” with whom I chat and eat anywhere they like.  For now, while it is beautiful outside, we eat in the courtyard.  Sadly, one of my lunch buddies, D I will call her, told me she doesn’t think she will make it to college.  She is 10 years old.  I will be encouraging her like you would not believe.
• Mondays and Wednesdays I head to ultimate practice with the USC girls after work.  In case you didn’t know, I love ultimate.  I will be running a practice next week, so we will see how that goes.
• Tuesdays are often trivia night.  This week’s team name was “Spheres of Specific Sphinxes” and yes, she did pronounce it incorrectly, giving us a satisfying giggle…again.
• This past Thursday I tutored City Year Executive Director’s son after work.  I don’t know if that will be every Thursday or not, but it was interesting.  He is so fun to talk to and goes to an excellent Hammond School.  He is in third grade, so I was expecting him to be struggling with 4 or 5-letter spelling words.  No, he was studying words like “abrasive” and “accountable.”  It was so different from the experience with the students at school.

Fridays are always different; usually training and service and unity rally at the State House, but sometimes we have off because of a 6-day week before.  Saturdays are always different too; service, or Columbia Heroes, or we have off.  I wouldn’t let a weekend slip by without doing something exciting though!

Song of the day:  “Free Falling” by Tom Petty