First Week in Charlotte

This was my first week of service with Habitat Charlotte as an Americorps member. It was four days of training including purchasing tools, a build day and getting our team assignments. We also toured the Habitat for Humanity offices, warehouse, and Restores. The main restore also has a used bookstore/coffeeshop attached that serves coffee and baked goods and all the proceeds go to fund Habitat houses! Although one of my goals for this year is no not acquire any books (or other treasure that seems to accumulate) it’s going to be challenging being so close! Most of the week was spent with training and orientation, and we have another week of training before we settle into our routine.

Thursday we had a big group build day with all the Americorps and the site supervisors (about 30 people total). We built a subfloor for a house and spent the day rotating teams, experiencing different supervisors and working with different Americorps members. At the end of the day we learned our team assignments. Sean and I will be on TA’s team doing critical home repair. The critical home repair program provides urgent major home repairs to low income primarily elderly homeowners. We’ll also get to build on the 30 hour house (a house we’ll build over 30 straight hours of building) and the 7 day build.

Saturday we had off for the holiday weekend, so I was able to attend the Hands on Charlotte new volunteer orientation and learn about different volunteer opportunities in the community and meet some other new volunteers. There seems to be a lot of different opportunities to volunteer, but not necessarily on my days off, so I may look into volunteering after work some days. Then I went to my first yoga class at Okra. It was a heated vinyasa class, which was a new experience for me. I like the studio, its clean and really cool to practice in. There are tree branches decorating the walls and some really unique lighting fixtures to set the mood. However belonging to a yoga studio might be too expensive this year, and a membership to the YMCA really is a better option. The YMCA offers not only yoga classes, but spin, other group exercise, a pool and general workout equipment.

The other day Zoe invited me to do a century ride in 3 weeks with a group of recent Bike and Build Alums. I haven’t ridden 100 mile ride since 2008. So I don’t know how far I’m actually going to get, but I’m going to attempt the “Hilly Hellacious Hundred” ride. I’m excited! So far it seems that a lot of the Americorps members who are from the area spend most of the weekends with the boyfriend/girlfriend/families so there’s not too much going on in our apartments on the weekends. Friday we did have our first “Family Diner.” This potluck was themes “food that begin with the letter P.” I brought potatoes, but we also had popcorn, pico (and chips), phajitas, and peaches. We also played Cards Against Humanity (politically incorrect Apples to Apples) and had the chance to hang out as a group after a great first week!