APEX work list

This is a partial list of all the tasks we did at APEX Youth Center ...

Fixed closet doors
Emptied two giant closets: sorted, organized and reloaded
Donated and built three shelving units in closets
Cleaned bathrooms and scrubbed floors
Painted Room Dividers
Cleaned and organized office
Cleaned and organized library, including adding new shelving and sorting and moving books.
Scrubbed carpet in pool room and hallway
Carpeted performance stage
hooked up instruments and microphones
Hung artwork
Scrubbed, raked and swept courtyard
Moved dirt, separated rocks, leveled ground in side yard
Moved bathroom doors (hung way too high by previous group)
Painted hallway and video area
Painted metal door
Touch up paint in main room and bathrooms
Filed and fixed metal front door
Emptied, cleaned and organized pantry
Emptied, cleaned and organized tool closet
Created spreadsheet and Data entry of all youth in center
Sorted and filed registration forms and camper forms for center
Planned, shopped and cooked dinner for Thursday night (sloppy joes, grapes, carrots, chips, cookies, rice krispie squares and brownies)
Created signage for Camp

I know there was much more we did, but this is the list of things I could think of! The team made a difference not only in how the center looked, but helped prepare them for the coming season of camps and open houses!

New Orleans 2010

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Maddy's blog

Hey guys, this is Maddy Kane writing on the blog on the last night of an awesome work trip. I'm going to be reporting about yesterday, seeing as we were all exhausted after our day in the french quarter, and we were all too tired to write on the blog. We split into groups, abut 4 or 5 youth and 2 adults, and went our separate ways. The group I was in started out at Cafe du Monde, a classic french cafe with amazing french donuts, called beinets (sp?). We spent the rest of the day at various shops, most of them consisting of Mardi Gras masks, tourist tee shirts, and plenty of beads. We went to a candy shop that had really good pralines, and we also went to many cool boutiques. The architecture is really beautiful, and some of the streets are brick. New Orleans is a really beautiful city, especially the french quarter, so i highly recommend visiting it sometime!

The Team

Here we all are, minus Ashley Day who had to leave today! Note to self, take the picture on the FIRST DAY not at the end!

And we have an actual nice group picture ... this is just the moose picture (ask someone what that means)!

Friday

I am hoping to get some kids who want to write tonight, but everyone is on off cherishing their last night together ... which means lots of exhaustion and lots of energy all at the same time (and especially dependent on the age!).

Today we once again had three teams ... our final day to mow in the Lower Ninth, and to finish up at Apex, but the "painting group" started at a new house. Our plan was to work until 1 or 1:30, come back, shower and then all head to Apex at 3:30 to be with the teens that are helped at the center. Plans changed for the painting crew, and they stayed longer but the rest of us came back.

It was again a hot, hot day, but I think everyone felt good about the contributions made during our week here. Our time with the Youth at Apex was loud, crazy, energetic and touching! We are preparing for our closing devotions/worship and will get up early to leave for the airport.

We remain grateful to Annunciation Mission for hosting us this week, to Apex Youth Center, the Lower Ninth and organizers of our painting projects (who we can't remember the name!) for providing us with a wonderful home and meaningful work during the week. We are exhausted, fulfilled, challenged, hot, loud and renewed. Thank you New Orleans and thank you youth from FCC!

Thursday work & play

I have found that on work trips, Thursday is usually a difficult day at work. Everyone has worked hard all week and kept good attitudes, and Thursday is usually the day when people start losing some patience and feeling the hard work in their bones! This is also why we often schedule our "outings" or "free time" for Thursdays because everyone needs the BREAK!

Our teams went back to Apex, to mowing and to finish the painting on the house in Gentilly. We met back here around 1:30 and prepared to go to the French Quarter. We broke into smaller teams, each with adult supervisors and all groups had a great time. Each group had a unique experience ... some did power shopping, some walked everywhere, some tried on very expensive jewelry, some saw some interesting women, some visited the Cathedral, some tried to visit cemetaries, some spent time at good restaurants. I hope to gather stories and share what the groups did, but everyone has scattered tonight. Enjoy a few pictures ...

Painters ... here are some pictures of our team who has been working in the Gentilly neighborhood the last few days!

Everyone is to "into" the hockey game to blog tonight, but we had our first team of "mowers" go out today into the Ninth Ward. It was hot and messy work, but the team did a great job clearing some lots.

Sno balls

So when I came back from APEX today I told James I was planning on taking the kids to get ice cream tonight ... he informed me that I was not going to do that, I was taking them to get Sno Balls. (James is a volunteer and invaluable source of wisdom here at Annunciation). So he gave me directions to the best Sno ball place in the area and we made a plan to go tonight during the game (for those who were willing). So four vans and 20 something youth took off to get Sno Balls!

I must say, that I am not a fan of sno cones, so I was not looking forward to missing a good ice cream cone, but SNO BALLS ARE DELICIOUS. The place we went (Williams Sno balls) had over 100 flavors and a variety of sizes. Every single person loved them and here are a few pictures of our experience ...

Day Three

Hello from NOLA- Allison here on Day 3 of our trip, and day 1 1/2 of work. Today I spent the day working at Apex Youth Center to help get ready for their 6 week long summer camp. Most of us spent the morning organizing a very large closet with art supplies, sports equiptment and lots of very important summer camp equiptment. Others spent the day cooking the meal we will be providings the kids tomorrow night. One thing I have come to recognize with work trips is that no matter how insignificant the work we are doing seems at the time, there is a reason for it. Without the organization, the camp wouldn't be ready to open on Monday. As a side note, this place, and more importantly, Dan and Lisa who run Apex have some of the most amazing talents to share with thier community. God is clearly using their gifts in a big way. This summer camp that they run is free for the community and serves anywhere from 50 to 100 kids on a daily basis. Lisa has created a weekly curiculum that coinscides with the "one city" moto from the Mayor, as well as a setup that encompasses all different age groups and opportunity for leadership. The stories both Lisa and Dan have to share show a real glimpse into the way lives of these teenagers are so much more complicated and difficult than anything most of our group has ever had to expererence or imagine. One of the most powerful things Lisa had to share with us was the lack of hope for tomorrow, and what that does to a community. The goal of Apex Youth Center is to help teenagers see there are choices they can make that can bring about positive change, and it has worked for some so far.

Enough heavy stuff... Tonight it sounds like it will be Snoballs and the hawks game for our group. I'm sure the groups that spent the day outside will be excited for some much needed rest and air conditioning. More to come from other groups!

Today we did a little less work that we will be during the next couple days, but the work we did do made a really big difference in someone else's life. We all had a lot of fun while working. We saw a lot of very sad and teary faces whilee we were being talked to about the hurricane. The whole time they would talk about all the family and friends they lost i literally had to hold back my tears it was so sad. The ride to and from the Duplessis house we saw a lot of houses. Sum of them were nice.........Some of them were completely and totally destroyed from the hurricane and the flooding. It was all sad but made u fell like you wanted to help more which took some of the pain away and made you feel helpful. When we went to their house they gave us a tour of their beautiful house and cooked a wonderful lunch for us. On the way home we took some pictures of all the things we felt necessary. We had fun while at the same time making a difference in someones life witch made us fell better at the same time as it did for them. The work we did was not so much today but it made a BIG difference and i am grateful we got to do it!!!!!!!:) (Zoey Schnurlein)

day two

hello friends!
Today is 6-8-10 and this is dunn... dunn... dunn...DAY TWO OF THE NEW ORLEANS MISSION TRIP! Once again it was extrememly hot (with a few showers of big rain drops!) and humid. I went to Gentilly (spelling?) to help another group finish painting a house. The color was a pretty blue/green-it can still be seen in my hair-and we all worked really hard. Our group only stayed half the day, then we went over to the Duplessisesesese (spelling. again.) and had THE BEST FOOD EVER. Honestly, definition of southern hospitality and cooking. Everyone was welcoming and nice. We got a tour of the neighboorhood and saw all of the new houses, and also the ones that haven't been renovated. It was really sad but also an eye-opening experience. I'm so glad that we are here helping in any way that we can, I've noticed that no matter what we do, it will benefit New Orleans or someone in it. So far this experience is amazing and if you read this far, sorry, im not really a blogger.
Love it here.
Honest to blog,
Veronica (VJ) Morris. :)



Well hey,
It's almost seven on the second day! Waking up at 6 was very difficult because we slept really well. I went to Gentilly(?) today to paint a house. It was really hot and I painted a garage, porch trim, porch ceiling, and door frame cream with Taylor. Then we went to the Lower Ninth Ward to meet the Duplessises(?) The entire communtity seemed to be there and we just hung out and ATE. The Reverend gave us a tour of his home and the levees. The Brad Pitt houses are really cool too. I love knowing how many people are helping, but as we drove around it seemed like every other house was empty, falling apart, or just completely gone. I am sure that the next four days none of us are going to be clean! But I'm having a great time :)
Katie

oh HEY tuesday! :) grace&bridget here ! we are here to talk about the youth center we worked at today. all of the younger people went to APEX and some worked inside, and some worked outside. BRIDGET worked outside on cleaning out rocks from the ground and shoveling out dirt so the kids that go there would have a space to play sports and stay off the streets. Grace cleaned the inside of the youth center with others; washed bathrooms and wiped windows. then, we went to the Duplessises (?) and had dinner with friends and family. we also saw the Brad Pitt houses AND THEY WERE C0000000L . :D we also got a tour of the levees, which was also really cool and eye opening. AAAND NOW. we're going to reflections and stuff. so bye. :D
GRAACEEEEEEEEE&bridg.

The theme for the day is "go with the flow" ... and it was insanely hot here. The plan for today was to work in the morning until about 3 this afternoon, take showers and head out to the Ninth Ward for dinner with the Mt. Nebo community. Kim & I heard from Charles Duplessis last night that we weren't actually having dinner, but lunch with them! After some quick shuffling (and a few moments of destressing) we changed plans for the day and "went with the flow"!

The group split in two today ... 10 people went to work in Gentilly on painting and scraping a house. The rest of us went to Apex Youth Center, where again we had to "go with the flow". Our contact and main coordinator at Apex, Lisa Fitzgerald, had to go to court with a couple of her youth (who were swept up in front of Apex along with some youth who were holding some drugs and weapons last night ... the youth were actually waiting to go into Apex for evening programming!) so her husband Dan quickly tried to figure out what work he had for us. Once again, God was a part of all of this ... we worked two hours because of our lunch commitment, but we also only had two hours of work to do today because of the situation at Apex. Plus, because it was 96 today, our outside work was extremely difficult and tiring. Thank goodness that Apex is also air conditioned. Our time there allowed us to see some other needs, and we anticipate a run to Home Depot for a few supplies to tackle some of the bigger challenges they have for us.

Our time in the Ninth Ward was wonderful, but hot! The food was amazing ... fried chicken, catfish, rice & beans, potato salad, hushpuppies! And lots of cold beverages to keep us hydrated. Most of the group got a walking tour from Charles and a meaningful explanation of what had happened and is happening in the neighborhood. I will be anxious to hear everyone's thought tonight during devotions ... to see how the experience was processed. I hope to get people from each work site to comment later. Thank you for all your prayers and support!

I've asked the youth to take turns writing for the blog ... here is Zoey's entry for today ...

We all had a great time today with all we are doing, I have to say the highlight of the day had to be the plane ride here because everyone got like really close in those seats. Especially the taking off and landing because it felt like a roller coaster ride it went so fast. When we got to New Orleans we saw that there was so much we could and wanted to help fix. We all wanted to do soo much more than a lot of us would have wanted to do at home. We all take what we have for granted at some times while people here have less than we do cause of the weather issues they have. Coming down here made a lot of us think the same thing, its so different but so like where we live at the same time, it also made us think about how much more we should be thankful for what we have that other people would do anything to have even for a little while of their life. I think that I speak for all of us when I say we all will go home thinking a lot differently when we go home about what we have and what we take for granted from now on.

We made it ... its now 2:28 p.m. and we are officially entrenched at Annunciation Mission. Our flights were relatively uneventful and the team arrived in NOLA without much incident (except for my losing my drivers license somewhere between security at Midway and getting on the plane in St. Louis.) We ate a delicious lunch at Chik-fil-a and are figuring out the rest of our day!

Commissioned and Blessed

Today, we gathered in worship to be commissioned and blessed by the Congregation. Pastor Tom & Pastor Kim led the congregation in sending us off to do Christ's work in the world and be representatives of FCC to the New Orleans commmunity! Between all that, celebrating the "transition" of our 6th graders into Youth Ministries, and honoring our graduating seniors, it was an emotional day for many of us. But EVERYONE is excited (and maybe a little nervous) about what the week ahead will hold!