AmeriCorps Week May 10th-14th 2010

AmeriCorps Week May 10^th-14^th 2010 by Julia Karll

We planned three days of activities for AmeriCorps week, to really turn it into a week of service, and I thought it would be a good idea to have other events planned in case of rain. And did it rain!

We scheduled a storm drain stenciling on the Tuesday of that week, a litter pick up on Wednesday, and a Water Quality Monitoring for Thursday. Each event was to start at 10am and run until noon. Jumpstart AmeriCorps in Columbia asked if they could join our activities as they hadn’t planned anything, and had joined us in past years. As it turned out, only 2 jumpstart were able to come the first day and no one turned out for the other days.

It rained on Tuesday, so the ground was wet and a little cold, so we didn’t stencil storm drains, but we did pick up trash, a safe distance from the rushing water along Bear Creek, access off of Big Bear Blvd and Rangeline. We parked at the food bank and walked down the road to the trail, picked up trash, walked back and picked up in a parking lot. We asked the food bank to use their dumpster, which they agreed. Get permission!

The next day it rained again, and no volunteers showed up, so we canceled. And on Thursday, it rained again, and again, no volunteers. So one out of three events happened! Success!

In May, we also said "Good bye and good luck!" to Sarah, the AmeriCorps and MRCN administrator. She's off to adventure in northern MO/southern Iowa to begin her graduate career with MU with bat research. If anybody can beat that White Nose Syndrme, it is our b@d@$$ Sarah!