Early in the morning on November 8th I headed out the door with packed bags and AmeriCorps gear ready to attend what I thought would be a summer camp themed week full of camp fires, sing-a-longs and pow-wows.
After the my Pre-Service Orientation in August at the fanciest hotel I've ever stepped in to, I had thought the AmeriCorps team liked take their projects to the extreme, so when I read on-line that we should bring flashlights to the camp-fires for the 'activities' I started questioning some things.
Well after 12 hours worth of flying, driving, and chit-chattering with Rebekah (fellow Harrisburg AmeriCorps member) and seeing some other familiar faces from PSO (Cyrus and Alyson) at the Atlanta airport, we finally reached Shocco Springs just outskirts of Talladega Alabama. I'm happy to say that I immediately felt better when I started seeing more familiar faces. It wasn't about bonfire campgrounds, but rather a networking retreat to catch up with old faces and meeting new ones. After a long day of traveling everyone just took advantage of catching up, sharing reunion-hugs and just sitting back. The next day began the classes.
Early morning we had our opening ceremony telling us a little more about what to expect within the week and then we took the large group pictures. I'll post a couple once I get a hold of them myself but have yet to find any links to them yet. We took photos of the entire AmeriCorps Habitat Vista/National team and then more broken out in to smaller groups.
I could chat about the sessions/classes but really the most beneficial part of being around everyone for a week and the scheduled meetings was the networking. Talking with so many AmeriCorps representatives from so many affiliates across the states was great. There was so much sharing[stealing] of ideas, programs, successes, challenges, stories, inspiration, and more and that was truly what made the trip most worth-while. I met with a number of people in August at PSO when most of us didn't really know what to expect in the next few months but when we were able to reconnect this past week we had such a better grasp on our positions, fields, teams, locations, projects and more.
The week ended with a closing ceremony where a new home-owner family were given the chance to share their story of prayer for a new home and a thank you to the people who made it possible. I don't think there was a cold heart miles away from the room when they spoke of so much joy, compassion, love, and gratitude.
While I'm not sure if/when I'll see most of these faces again, I'm definitely looking forward to Build-a-thon even though it won't be till much later in the year and only based regionally. I had gotten excited about working with everyone on building together but plans changed and now we're being broken in to smaller groups throughout some different locations in the country.
It really was a great week. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again, hopefully soon.
http://www.dailyhome.com/view/full_story/10275611/article-Habitat-holds-national-service-conference-at-Shocco-Springs?instance=home_right
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