Logan is our county, it's L-O-G-A-N!

Last week's volunteers were awesome, legitimately awesome. The group leaders were super understanding and absolutely loved us, which in return helped us to love them right back! It really helps when they cut us some slack because if anything, that makes the staff empathize with them more and really try to work things out in their favor. I'm super excited for this week, I have a really great feeling about these volunteers! They are all energetic and beaming for this week to get started and it really jazzes me up seeing how amped they are to get on sites and to start doing this work. We have 4 different churches here, one being the Lord Jesus Korean Church from Richmond, VA. I swear these people are the funniest volunteers yet. They don't really know what they're getting themselves into skill-wise, so we've assigned them to mostly painting and low-key projects.. which still seem to overwhelm them. It's hysterical and I love doing damage control.

This weekend was AWESOME! On Saturday we got to sleep in (The volunteers didn't wake us up to say goodbye! They're angels.) until around 11, and then we went to a community contact's home with two other center staffs to actually get OUR hands dirty. We studded a wall and a half, put up some outer sheathing and installed a door! It was really great working with everyone, because it's one thing managing a project vs. actually doing the work yourself. Not to mention Shannon, the CC, made us all a huge turkey feast mid-day! It was incredible to get a real home-cooked southern meal.. these cafeteria meals can get obnoxiously monotonous.

After the Saturday filled with work we all went to an all-you-can-eat pizza place (like CiCi's) and then went to the arcade! I haven't laughed so hard for so long in quite some time.. I am honestly surrounded by some of the most hysterical people on Earth.

Otherwise, we're starting to wrap up a few homes this week! After this week of volunteers we only have one more, and it's starting to set in that we're not going to be around these families forever. I went and visited my 3-month boyfriend tonight with two volunteers to show them the ropes for the week, and had to break the news that this was our last week there. His eyes welled up and he hugged me, telling me how I'm like family to him and that I had better not become a stranger. There is no chance I would ever let that happen, I mean really, he is one of the greatest people I've ever met. These Appalachian people have some of the greatest hearts and warmest intentions out of anyone I've ever met, it makes me want to live here forever. I can already tell I'm going to be a bawling mess when I leave :(

On another note........ WERE STARTING OUR LOWE'S PROJECT ON SATURDAY!! We're super duper excited about it. There are 10 Lowe's volunteers who are helping us demo this one home and re-do it from 9-5 on Saturday and 9-1 on Sunday. The reason why we're also excited is because we're taking a risk-- by that I mean we're spending over $3,500 for an electrician to re-wire this home's electrical work. (I was planning on shaving my head if we fundraised $5,000 from the volunteers, but turns out we only need $1,000 more! And let's be honest, my luscious locks are worth much more than a grand.) We're replacing flooring in three rooms, sheetrock and painting in a few others, and installing a girder and other misc things in the back room. I'm really excited to do the work again and be there for the entire duration so I can really direct the volunteers for the day.


Ahhh that felt good to write down and get caught up! Sorry that was so long but hey that's my life! Enjoy.