Due to some problems with accessing internet over the past round, this is my first blog post in forever, it seems. That being said, this may turn out to be a long one, since I have a lot of ground to cover.
The Super Badgers in Baltimore, looking very accomplished after recycling 4 tons of aluminum
Second Round was the SuperBadgers first split round, meaning that we were going to be at 2 different projects in the span of a round. The two different projects provided a good contrast to one another in locale, though, they were closely related in their aims and missions.
For our first half, we were sent to Charm City, Baltimore, Maryland to work at a charter school called City Neighbors. City Neighbors was one of the first charter schools to open in Baltimore City (our sponsor was one of the founding members), and it has become such a success that they decided to expand from the original location in the Sedonia neighborhood of Baltimore to the Hamilton area, which are about a couple miles apart in Northeast Baltimore. City Neighbors obtained the ownership of Hamilton Middle School, a school that had closed a couple years ago, and are now in the process of renovating the older school building into a more dynamic, effective learning environment. The school began last year with grades K-3, and this upcoming school year, they are adding the middle school and a high school to the mix in the same building.
Arriving at City Neighbors Hamilton, we met our sponsor, Aisha, who is our favorite sponsor so far in NCCC. Aisha served as the guiding architect for the City Neighbors vision for Hamilton, and she was also put in charge of getting the school ready for the influx of new students in the fall. Our job, essentially, was to help the school save money on labor costs by helping prepare the school for the next stage of renovation, a big part of which was demolishing the Blue Building.
The Dreaded Blue Building
This project by far was the most physically demanding project since our year began. With our task in the Blue Building to remove as much aluminum as possible, we had to take down many of the interior walls to remove the aluminum frames. Although the walls were meant to be constructed fairly quickly (I was told at one point, a crew could out up the walls in 3 days), deconstructing them took a bit of problem solving on our part, eventually perfecting a method that worked well, and involved a lot of smashing. As we have now decided as a team, the sledgehammer was the most important tool for working in the Blue Building. Not did it get the job done in a timely manner, but it improved our upper body strength, and fulfilled the desire that everyone has at one point just beat the living crap out of something. After taking down the wall, we had to find a place to put it, which meant carrying each steel-plated piece of Sheetrock out of the building into the dumpster outside the blue building. As each piece weighed about 50-60 pounds, it was a least a 2 person job, although by the end of the project, it had turned into a 4-6 person job due to our wall-carrying fatigue.
The Blue Building near the end of our project: an unwilling victim to the power of the sledgehammer
The Blue Building near the end of our project: an unwilling victim to the power of the sledgehammerAlong with the blue building, we had an assortment of other jobs, including clearing out rooms for the professional demo crews, but one of note was deconstructing lockers in the school's boys locker room. Occurring mostly during our last week of the project, we used all of our brain and man power to disassemble these lockers, eventually using a sawsall, a weird power chisel, and of course, sledgehammers and crowbars to get it done.
My foot got caught under a row of lockers we were moving. Good thing I have steel-toed boots.
Beyond the work site, I really enjoyed getting to know Baltimore, a brand new city for me. Getting out on our free time and exploring the different neighborhoods like Fells Point and Mount Vernon was a lot of fun. The Inner Harbor provided some good time out on the water, and some team fun.
Transitioning to Great Falls, Virginia, where the second half of our round was fairly easy. Our project, Camp Fraser, was located in a 300 acre forest preserve, which excited many of us. I was pumped to be out in nature and living simply.
Camp Fraser is operated by Calvary Baptist Church, located in downtown Washington, D.C. Mr, and Mrs. George Fraser, who were parishioners at Calvary, donated a portion of their property on the Potomac River to the church in the 1960s to help inner-city youth experience the outdoors. Since that time, the camp has been striving to fulfill that mission, until this year, when the hard choice was made to close the camp for the season and focus on getting the camp up to par. We were all thrown for a loop coming into Great Falls, where multi-million dollar mansions, each acres of land, are the norm. The contrast between the work we were doing for inner-city youth at Camp Fraser and the affluence of its immediate environs was striking.
Camp Fraser, Great Falls, VA. The second half of our project.
Transitioning to Great Falls, Virginia, where the second half of our round was fairly easy. Our project, Camp Fraser, was located in a 300 acre forest preserve, which excited many of us. I was pumped to be out in nature and living simply.
Camp Fraser is operated by Calvary Baptist Church, located in downtown Washington, D.C. Mr, and Mrs. George Fraser, who were parishioners at Calvary, donated a portion of their property on the Potomac River to the church in the 1960s to help inner-city youth experience the outdoors. Since that time, the camp has been striving to fulfill that mission, until this year, when the hard choice was made to close the camp for the season and focus on getting the camp up to par. We were all thrown for a loop coming into Great Falls, where multi-million dollar mansions, each acres of land, are the norm. The contrast between the work we were doing for inner-city youth at Camp Fraser and the affluence of its immediate environs was striking.
The Camp Fraser Lodge, where we lived and worked.
Our main task at Camp Fraser was to disassemble odd-looking three-tiered bunk beds in the lodge, and construct new, typical two-tiered bunk beds. This task seemed simple enough, granted that we would have the plans and expertise provided by our site supervisor to get us started. Unfortunately, our original site supervisor, aged 89, had a slight stroke a few days before we arrived, which meant we had to shift gears on the work we could do.
In the place of our original site supervisor, we got to know (and love) Ivan, the camp's caretaker, who led us on our new work-painting the lodge bedrooms and storage rooms. We had as much fun as one could have painting white rooms a newer, brighter shade of white, and now have declared ourselves quite proficient in the fine art of painting.
In the place of our original site supervisor, we got to know (and love) Ivan, the camp's caretaker, who led us on our new work-painting the lodge bedrooms and storage rooms. We had as much fun as one could have painting white rooms a newer, brighter shade of white, and now have declared ourselves quite proficient in the fine art of painting.
The Badger 7 Paint Crew: now available for hire for all your painting needs
By the middle of the second week, painting had grown a bit repetitive, and, luckily for us, a new site supervisor arrived to help us get started building bunk beds. Laid out in different stages, Brenton, our TL, developed a system for making wood cuts and assembling the different parts that would make a bunk bed whole. We caught on pretty quickly, and by the end of the round, had made enough new bunk beds to fill both of the large downstairs bedrooms- 16 beds in all.
While at Camp Fraser, we finally had time to bond and become a more cohesive team. Stranded without both TV and Internet (combined with a good half-hour walk to anything that resembled civilization), we had to rely on each other for support and camaraderie. In our spare time, we took a lot of team outings, and got to explore some of our nation's capital.
Our second round, as a whole, was lots of fun and had many contrasts. As I write this on our summer break, Badger 7 is scattered to the far corners of the country, but in a week when we reunite for our third round (spoiler alert: its in New Brunswick, New Jersey working with Rutgers University), we'll be ready to take on anything that's in our path.
Until next time, keep your noses on the grindstone and your eyes on the stars.
-Peter
While at Camp Fraser, we finally had time to bond and become a more cohesive team. Stranded without both TV and Internet (combined with a good half-hour walk to anything that resembled civilization), we had to rely on each other for support and camaraderie. In our spare time, we took a lot of team outings, and got to explore some of our nation's capital.
Our second round, as a whole, was lots of fun and had many contrasts. As I write this on our summer break, Badger 7 is scattered to the far corners of the country, but in a week when we reunite for our third round (spoiler alert: its in New Brunswick, New Jersey working with Rutgers University), we'll be ready to take on anything that's in our path.
Until next time, keep your noses on the grindstone and your eyes on the stars.
-Peter
Badger 7, at the end of our project at Camp Fraser. Also, two people got into a fight with an electric shaver and lost (myself included).
