Today we spent our morning at the Wheeler Mission cleaning and doing child-care.

Later in the morning we served lunch at the men's shelter and helped with wash

ing-up.

In the afternoon we got the opportunity to explore Indy. Some chose a quiet bike ride, while others fell in love, with Steak 'n Shake!

c.farrell

Wednesday

Today was a long day and quite a busy and tiring one.  We spent the day with the organization of Rebuilding the Wall.  RTW is an organization that strives to better families, communities, and battle social justice issues.  They do this by working on rebuilding homes for low income families, training builders that had no other skills previously to help them find employment, and just trying every day to better their surrounding Indianapolis neighborhoods.  Our tasks for the day consisted of shoveling mulch into community gardens, to surrounding homes, clearing out a backyard to help create an urban garden, helping clean a home, and assisting with siding.

The group even got to spend time talking to Chris (pictured on the far left) about the organization and how they can bring some of the concepts from RTW back to Eau Claire.  After a long day (and quite a few sunburns) we had dinner at Golden Corral and spent the evening by a bonfire to unwind.  Tomorrow is our last full day and we will be spending it at Wheeler Mission Ministries and exploring downtown Indy.

photos from tuesday! :)

Today (Wednesday) we had a very rewarding day. We began at Providence Cristo Rey a Roman Catholic college preparatory school in Indianapolis. This unique program pairs high school students with local corporations. Students go to school four days a week and work one day a week at their corporate placement. This unique educational model gives students a strong work background, tangible experience and the skills necessary to succeed in college. Later in the morning we joined eight PCR students at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis to help the archdiocese move a large number of materials from one building to another. While helpful, the real learning happened as the high school and college students interacted with one another.

This evening we had dinner with the founder of the Circle of Sisterhood founder Ginny Carroll. She shared the goals and mission of this amazing organization which are to reach out to girls in developing countries and stress the importance of education...

Ms. Carroll invited us to join her and we were lucky enough to go to Butler University to hear America Ferrera speak about education and diversity.

Tomorrow we are off to Rebuilding the Wall!

c. farrell

We had a great day today at Gleaners Food Bank. We spent most of our time sorting hair care items. so why is this important? If Gleaners clients have trouble providing the Food their family needs, then one has to believe that hair care may also be an issue.

We sorted about 5000 pounds of items, that is 2 1/2 tons of stuff. Everyone in the group worked really hard, and I was very pleased with how much we got done. The Gleaners staff was great and were very grateful for all of our hard work.

This evening we went to the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership. We discussed the concept of servant-hood and how is may apply to the organizations we will work with this week. We had a very nice build-your-own-nachos buffet for dinner. Back at camp we had a short, but good discussion about the day and we are ready for tomorrow!

And so after a long day, time to put our feet up...

c.farrell

Day 1

 From left (top row): Brian, Sam, Frank, Arielle, Jon, Caleb, Ian

From left (bottom row): Katy, Brittany, Meghan

Well after 9 hours of traveling, we have arrived at our cabin at Jameson Camp just outside of Indianapolis.  It was quite the long ride, but we all survived in our two minivans.  We are just starting to get to know each other for the week ahead, and we thought there was no better way than enjoying the weather and playing some games at the campground.  We arrived to 80 degree weather and nice green grass (which wasn't much change from temps back in Wisconsin). Tomorrow we will be working at Gleaners Food Bank and visiting the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership.  Should be an exciting day ahead!

Some of the group playing volleyball

Starting Out

Hello Blog Followers!

 

We are leaving Eau Claire Sunday morning, bright and early, and will be heading down to Indianapolis for six days of service, leadership, and fun! There will be 11 of us on this adventure, 9 students, me, and Charles, so it should bring a wide variety of experiences, perspectives, and make for great conversations! Hopefully we will be able to get some of the students to contribute and tell you all about their personal experiences along the way. 

I hope you all enjoy reading about our travels (and the exciting or interesting experiences that we will be sure to have) and we will see you all when we return!