On my last night in Coos Bay, I'm left to reflect on my experience. I've come to realize that Oregon has made a lasting impact on my life in a number of different ways. Below I've outlined a few highlights of my stay:
Park West Apartments is a low-income apartment complex that houses a number of different characters. Our neighbor, Rennie, is a man in his fifties who escapes his apartment approximately every 20 minutes to have a cigarette. These little breaks have resulted in Rennie getting to know our team very well. He sees us when we are rushing out of the door in the morning with our untied steel toes on our feet and our bowls of cereal sloshing around in our hands. He sees us when we roll out of the van after PT in the evening, exhausted and crabby. He experiences the shouting, stomping of the feet, and the slamming of the doors. He listens to the laughter and the loud music and he smokes his cigarettes through it all. We share stories with Rennie on the way down to do our laundry. We talk about his kids when we are getting a breath of fresh air, and we give Rennie updates on our future plans. Rennie has made our team food because "he just has extra," and we've left treats for him hanging on his door. I'm going to miss Rennie and our pleasantries very much. He's the type of character that I feel blessed to have met because even through all of our disruptive habits, he's able to understand that we are just a bunch of big kids trying to do service.
Jackie and I started an energy education program this round where we went into classrooms and we taught students about water and energy and the importance of conservation. I was able to schedule 23 different lessons, and I was able to teach in 12 different classrooms and in 3 different schools. I cannot put into words how beneficial it has been for me to be able to gain so much teaching experience in such a short amount of time. I was able to connect with different teachers, explore different schools and classrooms, and get a further idea of the age that I want to one day teach. The children often treated us as celebrities--asking us for our autographs or saying they'd seen us on the news. Teaching and being with children made me feel like me again. It is really hard to ever feel like myself in AmeriCorps because I am often so overwhelmed by the constant change and big personalities. Getting the chance to be in the classroom gave me faith that "I've still got it" and it allowed my teammates to see a part of who I really am.
Jackie and I planned a community day for our team and community members to work together at Bandon High School. We worked with the Coos Watershed on one of their projects to remove the invasive blackberry from the Gross Creek behind the high school. The students often use the creek for ecology lessons--planting trees and tracking the life of living things--and the removal of the blackberry was intended allow them to continue using this valuable resource. During the week before the event, Kyle and I visited five of the high school science classes talking to them about AmeriCorps NCCC and encouraging them to come to the event. Jackie and I had also contacted many local businesses asking them for donations so we would have snacks for the volunteers who showed up to help. Due to the great generosity of the community, we were able to get tons of doughnuts, coffee, tea, sandwiches, bagels, and muffins all the Friday night before the big day. We had picked up all of the items on Friday, so on the way home that evening there was a lot of bickering about eating the food. I was getting increasingly frustrated listening to my teammates complain about not getting to snack on the donations, and finally I blew up at one of my teammates. We both apologized for our behavior, and I followed up with hiding all of the food for the community day just to be sure. The following day everyone woke up early, drove the 40 minutes to Bandon, and pulled out blackberry in the beautiful sunshine. Over 30 students came to help, and many of them were excited to one day join AmeriCorps themselves. I hung out with the students, showed them how to get dirty, and answered their questions about the program. Our day was more than successful and I was so proud of Blue 7 for working so well together.
I've more than enjoyed my experience in Coos Bay, but it is time for us to move on. I think we've learned how to be a cohesive team and how to actually get things done. I'm excited to start a new endeavor and I can only hope we can impact our new community in Calabasas, CA.
