YSOP 2013 - Day 5

Laugh out loud today was another awesome one!

Noticed this on another groups' t-shirts. - they were more than happy to let us capture the logo on film.

Again, we split up and headed to two different locations. The splendid, fancy, and beautiful Black Team headed to DC Central Kitchen, a food kitchen that feeds thousands a day. Although the Red team had already visited this site, the classy Black team managed to add new pizzazz to the hairnets and helped out with tasks not done by the Red team. Ellie, Jack, Grace, Caroline, and Mrs. A had an emotional time cutting up onions, even shedding a few tears as they sliced n’ diced. Peyton chopped up some carrots, while Nicky helped out with chores such as sweeping.

A fabulous time was had by all. One of the highlights of the day was the amazing lunch that was cooked and served right there in the kitchen by the staff. Fish cakes, beef stew, rice, steak, and green beans comprised the main meal. Cake, croissants, and pies galore were our scrumptious dessert.

Ellie's first experience with a spork. :-)

During our meal, we sat and ate with another YSOP group from Orlando, Florida and with several other independent volunteers and had a splendid time chatting. After parkouring the mile home, we headed to the park across from the White House and hung out with the unusually colored squirrels and pigeons until it began to drizzle and headed back to the church for a reflection.

Nicky showing his parkouring skills.

What?

           

  

The delightful and cool Red Team had an early start and started our day with a 30 minute metro ride followed by a mile long walk. As the walk had just begun, the sky began to turn dark gray and Marky Mark shouted for us to walk faster to outwalk the storm. Though some people geared up with their raincoats, the storm blew right over and did not start to come down until we had begun our work. We all started off dusting and wiping down furniture and testing to see which lights worked.

After a slow start the girls started making bags full of travel size toiletries and the boys were summoned over to start the moving and loading for some clients. Shortly after, the Red Team took a quick lunch break and was sent back to work with the job of unloading the incoming truck full of donated items. After some was thrown out, most of it was set-up to be cleaned and taken upstairs. By the end of the day the warehouse was half-empty and although it was time for the Red Team to leave, the day was only half over for Wider Circle.

After our long and strenuous half day the Red Team trekked home to the Church to find an empty gym.

            After the teams were re-united, we gathered for our final reflection, which may have been the most impactful and meaningful one so far. We all realized that each and every one of us has the potential to do something great for others with our own two hands, even if it’s small. After our reflection, we returned back to the gym. The boys took it upon themselves to hold a wrestling match on their side. After a series of injuries and “ties” the group decided they had heard enough of the boys fighting and decided to go to Starbucks. Shockingly, everyone got something at Starbucks (even the boys). After a short period of time allotted for everyone to enjoy their drink, we headed back to the church where some people attempted to take a nap, or in Jack’s case become totally knocked out after such a rough day. As usual, the boys chose to steal people phones and make a game of it. After that fun game was over, the boys chose to all pile on top of one air mattress, while Aven photographed each and every part of what went down.

After that ended, it was time to head of to dinner at Ben’s Chili Bowl. After a short wait, we all headed to the back where we had our reserved space and met Caroline’s brother there. We were seated at three tables in the back room and enjoyed some scrumptious chili-cheese fries in anticipation of our assorted meals coming in the following minutes. After several servings of fries and various caffeinated beverages and some wonderful impersonations by Jack (Bill Cosby) McCracken, our famous half smokes arrived (shout out to Catherine, Ellie, and Caroline for just getting chili). We enjoyed a video describing the illustrious history of Ben’s Chili bowl.

On the way home, Mr. Palyo joined our artsy photo contest with a sunset building shot and even stepped in the way of oncoming traffic to get a particularly artsy pic (Way to go Marky Mark!). We sprinted (literally) to the church for the final time and, after bidding a goodbye to Hawaii-bound Catherine, proceeded to play games like Balderdash and to jump over as many chairs in a row as we could (Jack, John, and CJ reached 6 in a row). It was a perfect ending to a great week of service and fun! Special shout-out to the artsy Marky Mark and the fabulous, magnificent, and happy Coach Albright for being the best chaperones ever! All of us enjoyed every minute of the trip!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By Ellie, Kelsey, and CJ

Be on the lookout for the artsy photo and candid picture posts coming soon!