Rain, Rain, Go Away Already!

Today was the first year of the ECT and IBEW safety fair in Dublin. I went along with some friends from water polo and we did a lot of community service. Overall, we did about 10 hours. It was raining all morning and the most dangerest part of the safety fair was getting there. I could barely see anything in front of me on the road because it was pouring so badly. When we got there we went inside a giant building and talked with the director of the fair. We then started to set up easy ups for all the booths that would be there. One the booths were set up it was cool looking at them. There was a CPR booth with the plastic dummies set up, then there was a policeman booth, and a fireman booth. For our service we handed out the food that the firemen were cooking. We had to serve hot links, hotdogs, hamburgers, and chicken dogs... which were really gross. It was about noon when people started swarming us for food, even thjough the food wasn't ready yet from the fire fighters. Once some food was finally done, the people waiting grabbed and took most of the food. Which meant that other people waiting had to wait even longer for food. Everyone was standing in the rain, but it didn't matter because they were all there to learn about safety and other stuff. Most of the people working there and others who were there were really nice. Doing the safety fair was the best community service I've ever done. It allowed for people to know about safety, but it was also a good way to get out of doing community service at the Tri City place. I am glad that I went out and did this because it was a good way of helping out the community.

Camp Arroyo

On the 28th and the 29th I went to a camp in Livermore called camp Arroyo. Being in the group FIERCE which is a subgroup of the non-profit organization called LEAF, I was invited to attend this camp for free!! The camp was paid for by EathTeam and stopwaste.org. This camp was a big eye-opener for me, and I feel that it is my duty now to repay them by doing whatever I can to help save the earth around me. The people who I met there were much more than environmentalists, they instantly became my family.
When I arrived I was kind of nervous. I was directed to my cabin and unpacked. I hanged out there until the rest of my cabin arrived. Thankfully I knew most of them already, and those who I didn’t know I became fast friends with. We went down into the dinning hall to check in. On the wall were some lists of environmental workshops that we could sign up for. We filled out a name tag and then sat down at a table that matched our randomly assigned number that was given to us. We played an ice breaker game and introduced ourselves to the others at the table. Everyone from my table came from Fremont, and we all just happened to like Disney, Harry Potter, and Pirates on the Caribbean. Then we went on a small hike around the camp while being flooded with interesting facts. They did not have to cut down many trees to build the camp because a long time ago there was already an existing place there. The camp used to be an isolated facility for people with tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection that involves the lungs and is highly infectious, but when a cure was created for it there was no longer a need for the camp and it was torn down. When camp Arroyo located that area to build the camp on they went through a careful and detailed process to make the camp environmentally friendly. All of the buildings there were made from recycled material. The walls were insulated with hay and the windows and vents were carefully designed so that there is no need for a heater or air-conditioning. The water in the pipes are heated by the sun and the pipes run underneath the cabin so that the floors get heated. The floors of the cabin are made from left over ash that got mixed with cement to create concrete. Next we had lunch; every table sent two people to get the food. The food there was created for vegetarians so every meal was mainly created from carbohydrates and cheese. Some of the food came directly from the garden, and everything that could be, was organic. For lunch we got the best tasting pizza I have ever had! There were some vegetables on top of the pizza like artichoke, and every meal came with a new type of salad which I also really enjoyed. After lunch we attended our fist workshop from 1:30-2:30. The choices basically came down to two options, either working with fungi or with worms. I chose the vermicomposting class which basically taught us how to use worms to decompose left over food. Once the food was then decomposed we could use the leftover material or “worm tea” to help our gardens grow. We learned how to create homes for them and how to prevent something bad from happening. The temperature they like the best is between 60-70 degrees, if it gets to hot they will try to leave. When giving them food to eat we have to remember that worms breath trough their skin so we cant give then anything to acidic. We also have to pretend to be vegan when giving them food because any product like meat or cheeses can attract rodents. After creating the homes and learning how to take car of them, we got to take some home to start one of our own. The next workshop I chose was a two hour class on urban farming. A really awesome dude from UC Berkley named Gary Rosenberg taught the class. All of the material he provided didn’t coast him a penny! He went around town and collected all of the materials that was junk to others but was our “gold.” In the class we learned how to make the best kind of soil. We put all kinds of things in it like horse manure, egg shells, rotten avocadoes, weeds, dog hair, and dead bees. He explained the cycle and said that even weeds are good because they soak up the sun, when they die they give those nutrients to the other plants. His saying is that nature grows in abundance. He said a lot of complicated words here and there so we could all tell he knew what he was saying. We transferred plants into our gardens and afterwards we had sun tea that came straight from a tree he had planted. If you want to learn more about what I learned you can check him out on you-tube it’s really awesome! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMStyXKgsWs
I walked over to the other workshop which taught kids how to cook food using their garden. They had leftovers so we got to eat their vegetable stew as well. Afterwards we walked back up the hill and did some crafts and games. I learned how to croshay plastic bags into even cooler bags! We then had dinner of cheese enchiladas; we had an option to go on a night hike which I decided to go on. No flashlights were used and the stars looked amazing, plus you could hear those down at the campfire singing. We went down and joined the campfire and had smore’s. The next day we had freshly baked blue berry muffins and fruit. We listened to student presentations, wich talked about the projects that they were working on. 3 grouping including FIERCE got a 500$ state farm grant to reduce plastic usage. All of the students apply for grants themselves, if you write 50 grants you will probably win two of them. This shows how dedicated everyone is. Being in Fierce has shown me that anything is possible. (all of my pictures are on a disposable camera so I couldnt post them online)

One Man's Trash Is Genesis and Josh's Treasure!

For my fourth post, I went to (surprise) the Tri-City Volunteers with (surprise) Josh Christy. This time HOWEVER we tryed something new. For the last three posts, we've been going in and working at the Community Pantry but this time we charged into the Treasure Trove thrift store next door. I, personally, looo(that's right three o's)ve thrift stores and was happy when the woman said she always has things to do and would love some help. At first she brought up the restrooms and Josh and I weren't feeling it as she probably could tell from our faces because she then brought up that there's little things around the store we could do to make it look more organized. Josh and I straight up transformed the entire back of the store. First, we re-folded all the blankets, towels, etc. like pros. Right when we finished, this woman comes out the cuts like "excu me" and handles some towels just to put them back. Now I know how it must feel for the girls at the mall whenever people come and rifle things. Much respect to those women because this was only the first time and I was glaring. Anyways, then we went over to the bookcases and organized those. There were so many good books there! For only 50 cents! I was overwhelmed. But while we we're straightening them up and whatnot, this cute little elderly couple was looking through the books, you should've seen my face they so were gliffin' adorable. The man was like "how about these? you like these right?" and she was like "no, I don't like those" and he was like "well how do you know?" and she was like "because I do" and he was like "maybe you will". Imagine them saying these in cute loud voices because after all they are elderly and their audition is degenerating. Then he brought up some woman and she was like, "I like her but I don't like her sister!" It was wonderful. There was a really nice couch and Josh was like, "only $30! I love a bargain!" and then some woman was looking she wanted to buy it and he was hurtin. After, we organized the shoes and just made the thrift store look like some high end boutique. We work wonders. Like I said, thrift stores and me are like this *imagine my fingers crossed really tight*, you can get a bunch of stuff for so little money! So I enjoyed working there for my last mandatory post. So go check out the Treasure Trove, and marvel at the professionally folded items, wonderfully organized books and VHS tapes, and gloriously arranged shoes. Don't thank us.. we do it for you *wink*.. for the community.

The End

It's our final time doing this project. Edwin and I are partnered up again and we went to the same place as before. Even though we done this multiple times already I still wasn't comfortable with singing in front of strangers. This time there wasn't as much people volunteering I think it's getting close to summer. Without that much people we actually have to try and sing the songs. We just kind of  mumbled the songs so the other people's voices would be heard. We went to many different rooms and saw different people this time. When we went to the cafeteria Edwin started playing the piano. People liked it and asked for more but Edwin didn't know any songs just parts. After we hit a few more rooms we then turned in our vests and left. I don't think that I will be doing something like this again because it is too much out of my comfort zone

CPC, But Now in HD!

Deep and myself talking about our latest experience at CPC that included a new, very important person. Shot in glorious high definition! Pics to come in the comment section.

One Last Time

For my fourth and final mandatory post, I went back to the Tri-City Volunteer Center, but there seemed to be a surprising lack of volunteers this time. I went with Casey, Patricia, and Angela, and Brooke met us there. When we got there, things seemed really slow at first, and had almost nothing to do. Later, things got more hectic, but we did not do jobs that we would typically do when we volunteered there, like packaging potatoes. We started off cleaning a bit while Casey went to the front desk to help Stephanie. Brooke, Angela and I were busy sweeping and mopping the floors while Patricia was packing lunches for the homeless. After we finished with the sanitary work, we went to work preparing carts to go out to people's cars. Each cart required a loaf of bread, some dairy product, potatoes, lettuce, parsley, and a dessert. Once we received a card with a person's name on it, we would take turns bringing them out to help load the items in the trunks of the cars. Things began to slow down again, so I helped Patricia pack lunches, and was later joined by Angela. While we packed lunches, Patricia told us about the boy she was working with earlier, who was only thirteen years old and already involved in a gang. We continued packing the lunches until closing, but we saw that more people started coming at the last minute and we all decided to stay a little longer to help the workers out. We all kicked it into overdrive to get the orders out as fast as possible so everyone could go home. None of us minded the extra time at all and were actually willing to stay a little longer to help clean up to reduce the work required by the employees. After volunteering there so much, I feel like I would not mind going there to volunteer for extra hours, despite the admittedly boring jobs and sometimes tedious work.

Out with a Bang

For my last post, I planned to volunteer at Tri-City. However, that didn't work out for two reasons. First, everyone went there. Second, I got too busy during the week. So I ended up doing what I did the last 3 times. Furry Friends Rescue. This time though, it was different. I got there like I usually did and everything seemed normal. Then I realized there was a lot of other volunteers. And by a lot I mean like 8 other people. After I set up, I felt something and excused myself to the little boy's room. After I finished my business, I came out and saw everyone was already sitting with a dog. It was then that I was told that they had no work for me that day. At first I got excited that I wouldn't have to do anything, but then they told me I couldn't go home yet because they wanted to make sure no other foster homes dropped off their dogs. For half an hour I just sat on a fold-out chair listening to music until they finally let me go. So I guess not going to Tri-City worked out for me in the end since it let me get off the hook from working. Although it may not be the most "moral" decision, I still have to volunteer there because I made a commitment or something like that.

Tri-city

For my last volunteer experience I went to Tri-City again. I tried to volunteer somewhere else and it was to feed the homeless in San Francisco, but I realized that I could not make it the times they had available. So again it was back to Tri-City, we did something similar to what we did last time which was packing food into bags for people. Though we finished a lot of bags so some of us were told to help out the thrift store a little bit. When we went back to the thrift store I was hoping that I wouldn't have to vacuum the store like last time. This time we had to sort some clothes into piles, which was not very entertaining,but it was kind of cool to see the clothes that was being donated. Then the lady that worked at the thrift store asked me to clean the break room. Cleaning the break room didn't take to much time and soon enough I was finished with cleaning and all my hours. Doing this project was a great thing for us to do, because it really did help us learn about what others don't have and what we do. It puts things in perspective for us and really appreciate what we do have.

The Last One

I'd say that over all this project was more fun than I really thought it would be. Especially when I'm Bagging onions or potatoes with Javier Saavedra for about 2 hours. We went back to The Tri-City Volunteer Center. Its pretty crazy hearing that mostly all the kids who were there and didn't go to Washington High were in there for charges like possession of something bad or was atleast charged with something.

Javier and I had the usual routine that day, starting with signing in, wearing thoe neon green or yellow vest and getting a pair of latex glove. We already knew what to do with out asking the people who worked there. Bagging bread, onions, and potatoes or sweeping the floor. Javier and I voted on just bagging bread. The whole hour and a half flew by so fast. I was so glad that I finished this Equity Project with ease.

EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED.

Video Podcast (Part One): http://youtu.be/sZXuFZes49E

Part Two:

After more than half an hour, all of us felt accomplished at whatever we were doing. Whether it be sweeping or mopping the floor, packing or distrubing carts to the needy. I went to Stephanie and asked her if she needed help with anything and she told me to clean the windows. For about five minutes, I sprayed and wiped the windows inside and outside of the building. It wasn't bad but it wasn't a fun job. As soon as I got done I went to Stephanie again and asked her if there was anything else she needed help on. She replied saying that lunches were needed to be packed for the homeless so off I went and started packing with another volunteer.

The other volunteer who helped me pack lunches was Eddy (or something like that, I forgot his name haha). We started talking and I asked him the usual questions such as where he goes to school, what grade is he in, etc. When I had seen him earlier, I already jumped to the conclusion that he was a junior or senior because he was very tall and built. However, his answers to my questions surprised me... He told me that he went to Robertson and that he was only THIRTEEN. After finding out how old he was, I asked him why he was doing community service and his response shocked me even more than the past ones. He replied by telling me that he got in trouble in school because of possession of weapons and gang-related issues. Hearing this from a thirteen year old definitely made me think about certain things. First, I couldn't believe that someone as young as him is already affiliated with gangs and is able to possess weapons. I would hear about and see young kids that are in gangs but I never got to talk to one until now. This interaction made me realize that you would never expect what kind of people you'll encounter anywhere. When I started volunteering at Tri-City, I never thought that I'd be meeting different kinds of people that did community service for different reasons. This time was very special from the rest of times that I've volunteered. It made me see a whole new perspective of how these community service places really worked.

internship Cont.

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been at a family and cosmetic dentistry with Dr. (Ria) Vaishali Bhavsar. By now I’m getting use to the things that need to get done and to the people there. Some new tasks I had to do were to check patients folders to see if they needed any consent forms to be signed, or if the dentist need any more progress notes to be put in. I have also had to clean the rooms, and call the patients back into the room, and prepare them to see the dentist. I feel like I have earned Dr. Vaishali’s trust because she gave me the keys to her car, I had to go get some boxes. Some other thing is that I had to do, was to go throw out the trash, and open mail. Personally I don’t mind doing work, I’ve learned how to do a little bit of everything I can be helping in the front desk, in the back cleaning and preparing things or I can be assisting. I’m very thankful with Dr. Vaishali for giving me an opportunity to help out in her office and also because she wants to hire me after I’m done doing my internship.

Finally.

Last Thursday, I forgot to talk about my last day of volunteering, so this is making up for it. For my last day, me and the crew went back to Tri-City Volunteer (again). By this point, I was just like, "Whatever, it's the last day, why not just end it over here". So Leo, Patricia, and I got a ride from Casey, met up with Brooke at the parking lot, and went to work. We entered the building, signed in, put on our snazzy vests, and went straight to doing the job task we left off from the previous day. We began putting different foods into carts and baskets, and whenever a slip came from the office, we distributed the food to the people outside. Even though it was the second day doing this job, I felt used to it. We did this for 10 minutes, when Stephanie (the lady from my first day) came in and gave us new jobs. She wanted us to sweep (exciting!) and then mop the floor so the place would be clean. Patricia, Leo, and I went sweepin' on, while Brooke followed Stephanie to get mop things. While sweeping the dirty floor, the radio was blastin' and this one song that went, "JAM ON IT, JAM ON IT". And of course, Patricia was singing along to it, totally messing up the lyrics, when the guy who ran the place was like, "BONUS POINTS IF YOU KNOW WHO SINGS THIS!"...none of us knew, we aren't that old. Apparently some group called, "Newcleus" sang it, and yes, I'm listening to it right now while typing this. Well, we continued sweeping; I swept from the door, all the way almost to the thrift store room. While sweeping there, Brooke was having some technical difficulties (nah, she was just tired), and asked me to take over; and 5 minutes of doing it, it wiped me out too. Who knew that mopping was so tiring?! (I give props to the janitors). What was really messed up though, was that after I mopped a certain spot, some kid who was carrying eggs dropped one and it splattered all over the floor. "Gee thanks, man", I thought. I mopped up the spot and after doing it for a while, a kind volunteer that was working with us told me he would take over (GOD BLESS YOUR SOUL), and so I went back to distributing food. But after a while, there weren't any slips coming from the office, and I noticed that Leo and Patricia were doing another job; so I joined them in packing lunches which consisted of two sandwiches, a bag of crackers, a milk pouch, and a donut. We did for the remainder of the day; the clock striked 4:15 and we began to sign out, when a whole bunch of slips came coming through! We were about to leave, but turned back and thought, "We need to go back, they need help" and proceeded to distribute food until the last costumer was satisfied. The guy in charge thanked us for staying late and asked if we were returning; we were planning to, but unfortunately, we couldn't the next day. I felt kind of bad, but I remembered that we could always drop in. I thought that the last day was really productive; it ended on a good note that the "boss" wanted us to return. Even though I didn't find another organization to volunteer at, I'm used to working at that place and I don't mind the jobs they put us in; just as long as I'm enjoying it and giving back to the community.

Chill

Another day at Tri City Volunteer. But for some reason this one seemed different. It just seemed chill. Maybe it was because we knew what we were doing. Maybe it was because the knowledge of it being the last one soothed us through it. Whatever it was, it was better.

We started the day a little early and beat all the other high school kids we usually saw there. We put on our green vests like old pro's and walked out to the familiar potato smelling room. Without having to ask what to do we got to work bagging potatoes for a little while and calmly let the people standing around take over the bagging of the spuds. We walked over to the mops and began the necessary job of cleaning the floor. Without even realizing time had gone by we were told they were shutting down. Wow. That was fast.

This experience was so much better than all the rest and it makes me glad I volunteered. We passed the phase of being new and not knowing what to do, then we passed the stage of boredom, and finally moved on o doing hard work and feeling good about it. This is what volunteering should be.

Last Days at Tri City - #4

At first it was a little tough, the whole project especially with term papers and other various projects due, my group and I who had joined me had pulled through the tedious tasks of Tri City Volunteer's potatoe/onion baging. Now as the Reaching for Equity project comes to an end i realize some key elements I learned just volunteering there, like never take anyting for granted, be very patient, and help others.

It was almost like a regular day working at Tri City Volunteer except, it was the last day. We thought we would have had some crazy last job to do but, really it was a chill day. We baged potatoes and onions what felt like hours (really 20 minutes). The boss there on the main floor then asked me to grab a mop and start moping the back half area. I started working on it after the first half of the place was done the other person had finished the front area. Then back to filing the carts with huge brown bags of food. It was almost time to leave, which meant we needed to clean up the stations and the floors. So various people with brooms started going at work on the floors. Others cleaning the tables and finally finishing the final hour and half of our Reaching for Equity Project!! :)

Tri-City Volunteer #4

As this project is coming to an end, I have learned a lot from my experience working at the Tri City Volunteer center. I learned to not take the stuff I have for granted, because there is a bunch of people out here in our community that are less fortunate, and need the stuff we get that we can care less about.

To wrap up the reaching for equity project, I once again returned to Tri City Volunteer. Today I was expecting to do the same task I've been assigned to do for the past 4 days of working here, and that's exactly what I did. Although this time, I wasnt lost and I knew what to do and when to do it without being told what to do. I had to take initiative! After entering the facility, I signed in and put on the neon green vest with the name tag that says "VOLUNTEER" I immediately went to the potato/onion bagging table and began bagging. I'm not even sure how many potatoes/onions I bagged, I just kept going - bagging and tossing it behind me into a huge barrel. After that, I realized that the work space was extremely messy, So I decided to clean up a bit. I grabbed a broom and dust pan and cleaned as much as I could. After that, I was getting pretty bored with what I was doing, so I decided to deliver food to the people who are in need of it. I would push out carts of food loaded with, juice, bread, fruits and vegetables out to the front of the facility and give it to the people who demanded it. Did that for a while until the volunteer center closed.

And that's how I helped out my community :)

A Near-Death Experience at the Tri-City

On Thursday, May 19th, Brooke, Patricia, Angela, Leo, and I went to the Tri-City Volunteer Center again. This place is getting really tiring! When we first got there, Patricia, Leo, and Angela filled up the carts with the amount of food needed while Brooke and I ran it out to the people who were waiting. The people waiting outside were so nice! After about 20 minutes I decided to go into the office area to help file cards because there were no more carts to run. My job in the office was to ask for each person's ID and try to find it in the filing cabinet. It's a lot of hard work especially since there are thousands and thousands of cards in there and a lot of people have the same names, or different addresses as the one listed on their ID! Plus, it's really hot and stuffy in the office. One woman, whom I was helping, got really mad at me, however. I was trying to find her mom's card because she was picking it up for her mom. She was really impatient and irrational. She rushed me and so I ended up just writing her a new card, but she got even more mad because she "had other things to do" and "had to go". After I finished her card, I gave Leo her slip to run out a cart of food for her. He came back and said she was rude too, it was quite ridiculous and I was extremely happy when she left! After that, I was trying to work fast because there were a lot of people waiting. When I opened the top drawer of the filing cabinet, it fell on me! Well, almost! I caught it, but it was really heavy and scary because the clock and other stuff on top had fallen off and I thought I lost one of the client or customer’s driver’s license. It was a "near-death experience". I love working in the office and pushing carts out because I get to see people and talk to them. A lot of them are really nice and it’s so cute when they finally get their food. I love assisting others and while maybe this isn't the best place to go, it works for now! It makes me feel like a much better person when I'm helping out my community. Although this place gets tiring, I would definitely come back to this place.

Blog Post #4

Finally this project is coming to an end. Over the course of it I have to say has been pretty fun. For the last post I decided to stick with wildlife. Except this time it was a totally different experience, instead of doing a club and helping out the college leaders. I got to do a car wash. So every year the organization Younglife puts on a free car wash to help kids get to camp. A lot of the kids that come to the program don’t come from the most privileged families. So when time comes around to go to camp during the summer a lot of kids can’t go because of money issues. So we put on the car wash and accept donations from people to help kids go to camp. So this experience was really different than the other time. It was a lot more getting down and dirty. We washed a bunch of cars and raised a bunch of money for the kids. When summer comes around there are goimg to be a lot of happy kids.

Roses? For Me?

I went back with Jennifer to the Tri City Volunteers for our last time. This time wasnt as interesting because we just cleaned. They didnt have much for us to do this time because supposedly this volunteer crew came in and did everything there was to do. First the lady had me clean windows while Jennifer vacuumed. I dont like vacuuming so im glad she did that part. Then we waited around some more until they had us clean this desk. This desk was very dirty. There was like goo stuff caked on the surface. Its okay though, i had a scrubbing tool! The sponge smelt really bad. I think it was the water and solution stuff we had to use. Anyways when we were done with that the lady told Jennifer to sweep and our other friend, Monica, to mop. Fun. At this point the cleaning was all done so i was able to go out and five the baskets of food to the cars. I actually enjoyed this because well, im obviously not into cleaning. I took the little piece of paper with the number on it and found the person outside. I helped them put the food into their cars. The people were so nice! They all thought i was so nice for helping them load the bags into the trunk. Some people asked me if there were cetain kinds of bread or pizza or cakes. I felt bad when they didnt get the 'goodies' they wanted because it was like you take what you can get. I would hate that if i couldnt get what i absolutely wanted. Im glad i can get cake or pizza if i want too. So that made me feel bad when i couldnt give them what they wanted. At least these people were getting help and getting food here. After about five cars, it was time for us to leave. Before we left we were able to pick out roses for free! This was cool. I picked out red ones for my mom. They were in really good shape. After all the cleaning and helping people we left and i can say i had fun volunteering at places for our final project.

Coaching...again.

So Sean and I finally found a place where we could go back and volunteer for a second time. The first couple of volunteer opportunities we had were a one time thing so we had to keep finding different places to go. The third time, we went out and coached a little league team that a coach I used to have was in charge of. We both had a pretty good time and it wasn't inconvenient for either of us so we decided we wanted to go back and help again. We called the coach back and found out their practice schedule since we forgot to ask about it last time we were there, then we picked a day that was good for both of us and went.

We got there just on time and got right back to what we were doing before, which didn't surprise me at all. (Because pretty much every baseball team I've been on does the same thing every practice.) We got out the same equipment and waited for them to warm up. Again, we helped with getting baseballs in the outfield when they were hitting. We also helped out by cleaning up the dugouts a little bit, which we didn't do last time. The whole experience was good for me because I was in an environment that I'm comfortable in so it wasn't a big deal. If we had to do another blog post, I think me and Sean would come back and volunteer to coach again.

Last Day?!?!

Today Britney and I got to the Don Edwards Refuge around 12:30. Of course I drove :P. We went early to set up everything for the event. We set up the tables and had to hang a banner, well more like tie down the banner. It was for the Endangered Species Poster Contest that the refuge puts on every year. When putting up the banner Mark taught me how to do a blood knot. After practicing five times I finally got it!! Thank goodness. And we had two activities set up for the kiddies. One was making a clapper rail and the other was creating a salt marsh harvest mouse. Both are very endangered species. Britney and I basically worked with the little kids making the clapper rails just because those demanded more precaution. All the little kiddies were very excited to color the bird picture and cut it out so Britney and I could help them put it together. All of them did a great job and made some of them very very colorful. And after that activity had calmed down the kids went on a walk through the marsh to learn some information. And Ryan had finally gotten to the refuge to help. So since all the kids were out on their walk we went and took a picture on the air boat together. When we were walking to the air boat we witnessed fence lizards doing push ups. That was cool because Ryan and Britney had never seen it before. And after we took pictures on the air boat we started taking things down. So we took down the steps to go into the air boat and then we went back to the visitor center. We put together all the supplies and and took them down stairs. And I wasn't allowed to lift any of the tables so I took the chairs down stairs and then Britney and I took the banner down. And after that it was 3:30 and time to go home! It was an awesome day getting to hang out with the kids who drew the posters and talk to them about the environment. :)