Community Action Project: Day 1 (No. 4)

Hey peeps its your home girl Nicky Ny and your home boy chef Steff cookin it up, writing this blog!

Today was the first day of our Community Action Project, the whole reason were here, and it was definitely an eventful day! Everyone started the day with anticipation and excitement to begin bringing all of our preparation to life. Once we arrived some Glimpsers went to play with the children while meeting they met with nurse practitioner students, and some others began clearing out the feeding room to prepare for painting. We broke into three groups: gardening, mural painting, and bedsheet making, and we began our long awaited project. Immediately the heat became apparent to the people working not only outside but inside as well. The Glimpsers worked hard until snack time and almost had to be forced to take a break, they also had to be forced to stop to drink water throughout the working day. The gardening crew began with rows full of grass and weeds, and by the end of the day they had fully prepared garden rows ready for planting.

After lunch half of the group persevered though the downpour of rain and got muddy, while others went inside and helped with other groups. The painting group began with a bare pink wall and by the end of the day had not only completely mapped out their painting plans but were also to able to put down their first few coats of paint. Finally, the sewers were able to finish 5 bed covers as well as starting 3 more.

As you can see a lot got done, many got farther than initially projected. Once we got back, everyone took a well deserved break and were able to leave go on group outings for the first time without chaperones. Many were able to go shopping for snacks and souviners, while others went to get more supplies for the next two days of the C.A.P.

It’s Nicki Ny and I have been very excited about my day as a leader since before coming! I got to paired up with Steffan who was not hesitant to connect with me from the beginning. Learning from previous leaders, I knew that today was going to be difficult especially because it was the first CAP Day, so I made sure I prepped myself before handed the torch. Thought the work day it was difficult to make sure I knew the expectations and plans all three groups, so that I had to continue checking in with everyone. I also felt I was checking my watch every 5 minutes to know when to remind everyone to drink water. Even though everyone continued to get annoyed with my 30-minute reminders, they did say they felt hydrated at the end of the day. Overall, I did fell that I had to keep moving and communicating with everyone, or else I wasn’t doing my job correctly. I’m happy I’m able to give advice to the next 4 leaders for the other CAP days. At the end of the day, I was reminded why I love being and leader, and I would do it all over again!

Its Chef Steff, and Ive been nervous about being líder del día since writing my name down on the sign-up sheet. I don’t really feel that comfortable within the group sometimes, so giving instructions to people who I’m not 100% open with felt extremely weird. I unintentionally gave Nyel most of the speaking tasks, which she took over without a problem, while I worked mostly behind the scenes, doing simple things like passing out plates or running to peoples rooms to let them know the time, and to come down for group activites. At Nutre Hogar, I mainly stayed within the garden group, putting 120% into the manual labor portion of the project. Once on break, I was able to go look at the progress of the other groups and I was very impressed. I made sure that everyone was okay both mentally and physically, and encouraged as many breaks as possible so that nothing bad happened. I feel like today was a wonderful start to our project, and we accomplished the most difficult parts today, within all groups. I’m happy that we were able to take some burdens off of the other leaders shoulders and I’m happy to share some tips and tricks with them.

This is Nicki Ny and Chef Steff signing off!