What an experience!!!! :)

I am so glad that I had the opportunity to go to New Orleans to set up one of the new Kipp charter schools in Central City. Every day was a new adventure at the school from the first to the very last. The first few days were spent washing windows and wiping down cabinet surfaces. However, Wednesday to Friday was a lot more productive with "balling" chairs and desks, unboxing new library books for the library and shelving them, and cleaning up the school by taking trash out to the dumpsters. Every day was pretty exhausting, but also rewarding at the same time. As we walked through the neighborhood on the way to school, people would smile at us and say good morning to show appreciation for the hard work we were doing to get Kipp Central City School up and running. New Orleans is a great city and one that I am very eager to go back to and possibly teach. I mean what other city has live jazz every night and hardly ever snows?? :) This volunteering experience has also shown me that each and every one of us should take the time to do some volunteering and "give back" to our own communities or other communities that need our help. I really feel that we have made a tremendous impact on Kipp Central City School by all of the work and volunteer time that each of us put in. I'm hoping to join next year's team to NOLA next summer!!!