Atlanta Most of the Service Bus crew knew that NCOBS runs programs in Atlanta, but we had never been there or met anyone involved. Our two day stop in Atlanta was a great opportunity to learn more about what they do and to volunteer with students of the OB Atlanta programs. Before delving into our service project, it is important to note that the Service Bus has gained its 6th and final member! We welcomed Hillary to the bus after we left the Everglades. For service in Atlanta, we spent a few hours each day at the Urban Food Forest at Browns Mill with students from the African-American Males Initiative. The food forest is an interesting concept. It is a public space that locals can come into and harvest fresh food from. The nearest grocery store is 6 miles from the forest, so for locals without a car, getting fresh food is very difficult. This fact makes the area a "nutrition desert". The food forest was recently purchased by the city of Atlanta, and is on the up. Groups with OB Atlanta had worked there in the past, so it was great to continue that relationship. On the first day the students we worked with were in 7th grade, and on the second day they were in 10th and 11th grade. These students were all from Drew Charter School in Atlanta, and had been on an NC mountains wilderness trip in the past month or so. As a group, we removed invasive species in the forest, widened a narrow road, and laid mulch around picnic tables. A really great part of being in Atlanta was getting to see the NCOBS ropes course at a local high school and chat with the two folks that run the program- Amy and Jemar. Amy and Jemar have both been with NCOBS Atlanta for well over a decade. Hanging out at the ropes course and chatting with them helped to build our understanding of the program and its impact. Along this line, I really do feel like the being part of the Service Bus has helped me gain a greater appreciation of NCOBS as a whole. Final stats and reflectionsStats: Total service projects - 9 Total service hours - 257 Total miles driven - 3,155 Please enjoy the following gallery of golden photos from the trip, but not yet shared: Reflections (interviews with my crew mates): Q: What was your favorite service project and why? Alyssa: I really enjoyed the short visit to the Hollywood office in Florida. While the service was small, it was very noticeable to the staff how much it meant to them for our help. From cleaning the litter/trash around the office where they hold interviews for families, to creating a parking sign in order to make Outward Bound’s office easier to locate. Caroline: A few of the campsites along the Ocklawaha were trashed and there are no other organizations or authorities that frequently act as stewards to the river. Outward Bound uses the river as a classroom for at-risk or FINS students and I knew that we were helping both the students and instructors on future courses by cleaning up these campsites. Liz: My favorite service project was the volunteer work we did in the Food Forest in Atlanta. I loved meeting and working with the staff and a couple of the student crews at Outward Bound Atlanta. Their hard work inspired me. Liv: Working with the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary (in the Everglades) was an incredible experience for us to bond as a group, work hard, and learn about the environment that some of us will be working in this winter. Hillary: Working at the food forest was my favorite for a few reasons. It was a cool opportunity to see a new course area and learn about the amazing OB Atlanta program, as well as make a tangible difference working with students to make a green space more beneficial and productive for the community. Addie: Removing huge downed trees in the Linville Gorge with Wild South was my favorite service project. I loved using the big saws to make a tangible difference in an area that I call home. Q: What were the outcomes of this Service Bus trip? (Caroline) A: This year’s Service Bus completed a total of 257 hours of service. We spent 204 hours with outside organizations and 53 hours serving at Outward Bound base camps. We met another goal of professional development with each of our three day expeditions. We learned more about trail service with Wild South in the Linville Gorge and about paddling navigation on the Ocklawaha and in the Everglades. Through service, expedition, and everything in between, the members of the Service Bus grew in connection to each other and the school. Q: How has the Service Bus affected your relationship with NCOBS? (Liv) A: Before the service bus, I had heard about the different departments and course areas within North Carolina Outward Bound School, but they were always mysterious to me and felt separate from what we were doing in the mountains. After visiting the different base camps and offices, meeting staff members to put names with faces, and having the opportunity to work alongside students in Atlanta, I feel like I know this school better. I have a better grasp on the big picture of what we are doing and what my role is within that mission. Q: What did you get out of doing the Service Bus? (Liz) A: New and important friendships, role models within my community, opportunities to grow and push my comfort zone, a better understanding of different bases within NCOBS, a sense of gratitude for my life and my work. Q: Would you be interested in doing the Service Bus again? (Alyssa) A: For the rest of my career here at NCOBS, I will be forever interested in doing Service Bus again. I only hope that it will continue to line up with my schedule. The connections you make with your fellow participants to the connections you make with the people you are serving is invaluable. It truly is hard to put into words how impactful the service bus has been. I’m excited to see where the Service Bus goes next, and hope that I can join it. That's a wrap on the Service bus chapter of my year! It was a super cool, varied, productive, fulfilling way to spend a month. Up next for me is home (Bedford, MA) for Thanksgiving then I drive across the country to Big Sky Montana to live out my dreams as a ski bum. I am really enjoying the seasonal life, the constant transition, and the freedom of everything I own being in my car. I never thought as a kid that this is what I would be doing as a career, but if you told my 10 year old self that after college I was going to go hike and ski I would have said, "well duh". “But why think about that when all the golden lands ahead of you and all kinds of unforseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you're alive to see?”
-Jack Kerouac From the Florida Keys we drove north to the NCOBS Everglades base camp, known as Sunset Island. This base camp is a neat place to be, as it is located on an island off of Everglades City. You must canoe or ride the ferry pontoon across a canal to get to base, a very different vibe than the mountains bases I am used to. Service Our service component while in the Everglades took place at the Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. We worked as a crew along with two guest stars and two Audubon employees to remove invasive species from the swamp. The invasive species were Java Plum and Brazilian Pepper. We removed them using machetes and herbicide. This was one of those tasks that made me appreciative of the Service Bus experience, because when else in my life would I use a machete? The reason for this project was to make it possible for a prescribed burn in this area in the coming months. The manual task of removing these plants has been in process over the years, with many volunteer and intern hours put into it. The invasive plants that we were killing are fire resistant, and mess with the water levels of the fragile swamp ecosystem. By killing them, we were creating fuel for a prescribed fire to help "reset" the landscape, so to speak. Wildfires are actually natural and needed in many ecosystems. In the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, the fires are prescribed as the land is managed by humans to keep it healthy and in its wild state. Our second guest star was Caroline's friend from OB California, Sarah. Sarah will also be working at the NCOBS Everglades base this winter. Sarah has a cool story with Outward Bound and the Service Bus. Liz interviewed her, in order share more of that story and perspective: Q: What is your history with the Service Bus? A: I was part of the Service Bus out of Outward Bound California in the Fall of 2016. Our bus was composed of four field staff and we traveled throughout California and Nevada for four weeks doing service and exploring some beautiful areas where we run programs. I loved it! Q: Why is the Service Bus important? A: One of our pillars at OB is service and I can’t think of a better way for staff to engage with the curriculum and values that we teach to students than through action. I believe the Service Bus is important for staff because it is an expedition that keeps us accountable to learning experientially, similar to what we ask of our students. It also provides staff with new perspectives from peers and the communities that you get to serve on the bus. Q: Why visit the NCOBS Bus? A: I was so excited to hear that the Service Bus was making a comeback at NCOBS! Being a part of the Service Bus in California was such a highlight of my OB career, so I couldn’t pass up the chance to experience a little bit of another Bus expedition. I wanted to do service with the NCOBS bus to meet the amazing people who dedicated their time to this expedition, as well as spend some time learning about and supporting the area I’ll be spending my winter in. Expedition After two days of service and a rest day, we set out on our third and final expedition. This expedition was three days of canoeing in the Everglades National Park. The only time I had ever really seen the Everglades was from a ride in a touristy air boat when I was a kid, so this expedition in combination with our service at Corkscrew taught me a ton about this wild area. I'd like to take a moment to thank Caroline, who has been photographing most of this trip. It's because of her and her lovely camera that I am able to blog with such fire content. Please enjoy a gallery of the Bus crew's portraits below. Click on the first photo to open the gallery. And that's a wrap on the Everglades! Today we leave Florida behind and head to Atlanta for our final leg of this journey. Goodbye to the warmth, winter is here.
Hollywood - FIns office After leaving the Scottsmoor base, we headed south to Hollywood to visit the FINS office. As mentioned in my previous post, this office serves as a home base for family coordinators and instructors that are working with FINS students prior to and immediately after going on course. For service, one thing that we did was paint a sign to direct families visiting the office into the parking area. We also picked up a lot of trash in the parking lot as well as trimmed back some bushes. We did all of this service with the South FL FINS Family Coordinator, Christina Roach. It was really great, especially for those of us that have never worked a FINS course, to work along side of her and ask lots of questions. "While a priority of the Service Bus is to volunteer in the communities we serve, a byproduct of the experience is connecting staff. Helping out the Hollywood office felt like it had reverberating effects. As we picked up trash in the parking lot, we knew that both staff and students would benefit from our actions. As we spoke with Christina Roach, we all learned more about the FINS program. Through both service and conversation, the NCOBS community feels a little closer than it did before our visit." -Caroline A highlight of our trip to Hollywood was the "run and dip". A run and dip is an Outward Bound tradition where you go for a run and at the end of the run, jump into a body of water. The run and dip from the Hollywood office is pretty sweet because the run is 2.5 miles down Hollywood Blvd and the dip at the end is in the ocean off of Hollywood Beach. It was a great way to start our day before cleaning the instructor apartment, finishing the parking sign, then heading out to the Keys. big pine key - HIOBS base The Hurricane Island Outward Bound School is located in Maine, but they have a base in the Florida Keys where they run sailing courses through the winter. This was a really cool stop for our Service Bus because it allowed us to learn about an entirely different school. On our first day in Big Pine Key, we did base camp service. The base camp is really just a house, but as this is its opening week for the season, there was plenty to be done. We did yard work- trimming back bushes, then we set up some spring bar tents that instructors and students sometimes sleep in. This day was also a course start day. There was a 5 day veterans course leaving from base. Before those students arrived, we got a tour of the pulling boat which was super neat. Our second day in the Keys was our fun day. We spent the day in Key West, enjoying the beach and tourist life. Personally, I really enjoyed a last hoorah in the sun & heat before my long snowy winter as a ski bum begins. Our third and final day in the keys was spent doing service at the Dolphin Research Center. We were super excited to welcome a new member to our crew for the day, Cat, who worked as a logistics coordinator at the NCOBS Table Rock base this past season. The DRC utilized our crew to paint a second coat on a railing at their new welcome center. "After transitioning back home to South Florida, it felt great to reconnect with my NCOBS family and serve a part of the Keys community that does good. That kind of felt like coming home too." -Cat We also got the chance to look around the DRC in order to see the animals there as well as listen to presentation about them. We were grateful for this opportunity because the DRC charges admission, so for just a few hours of fun service we were able to spend the afternoon there for no charge! South Florida has been an absolute blast. We were able to do some unique and fun service projects, as well as unwind in the nice weather. Up next we head north again towards the NCOBS Everglades City base.
Where I last left off, the Service Bus had just completed 3 days of trail service in the Linville Gorge with Wild South, and was headed south to Asheville for our next stop. The original plan was to whitewater canoe the French Broad River and pick up trash, but the river was at flood levels so we had to make alternate plans. We went to Manna FoodBank, a spot that NCOBS volunteers at occasionally with student crews. None of us on the bus had ever volunteered there, however, so we were excited to see what it was all about and how we could help. Manna had a really amazing facility, and they shared with us some pretty astounding facts. One that stood out to me especially was that 1 in 8 children in America are food insecure, but 1 in 6 children in the Asheville area are food insecure. I learned about food insecurity in a food science class in college, but it was never something I had personal experience with or knew any close friends to struggle with. Since moving to this new area after college, it has been eye opening to do service at community gardens and food banks during course throughout the summer and fall. Volunteering with Manna was no different. All of us on the bus were amazed by the stats they threw at us and proceeded to have a really fun time sorting all morning. We were sorting goods that had been donated from Wal-Mart or Ingles. The goods came in huge gray tubs and we sorted them into boxes. The categories were kitchen supplies, disposables (paper plates, straws...), grab bag (misc toys and items that didn't fit elsewhere), diapers, and feminine hygiene products. The items would be sorted into boxes and placed on wooden pallets which food banks and other partners of Manna in the area could then order to give to families in need. After Asheville we headed down to our Scottsmoor, Florida base camp. We made a 7 hour ride take 12 hours, but with good reason. We stopped in Savanna, Georgia, to look around and get some ice cream. The travel portion itself was really fun, especially because we have picked up another member! We are excited to have Liv Olivito join us for the remainder of the bus, as she has finished up her fall working season. Now rolling 5 deep, our squad embarked on a mini canoe expedition on the Ocklawaha River in central Florida. Liz planned this expedition for us, as she is familiar with the course area from her work on FINS courses out of the Scottsmoor base camp. Additionally, this was Alyssa's first time on the Ocklawaha River after 5 years since working her last course in this course area. For service we stopped at most of the NCOBS campsites along a 38 mile stretch of river and picked up trash. We expeditioned with 3 canoes; 2 tandem and 1 solo. The solo boat ended up becoming the trash boat, as it got filled with bags and buckets of gnarly waste gathered from the sites. "The Ock is a beautiful river that contains a lively Florida ecosystem most people never get to experience. Cleaning up the Ock was an important act of Leave No Trace, and for me personally it was an appreciation for all the growth the river has helped provide to myself, my students and my community over the years." -Liz Our expedition was planned for 3 days. On the first day we started at around 3:30pm and paddled 8 miles then made camp. The next day, we decided to "epic" ourselves on purpose and paddle the remaining 30 miles that day, knowing full well it would take us late into the night. An epic is something that happens on courses, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not. They can come in many forms, for example: staying up all night to keep a fire alive (on purpose), waking up at 3 am for a sunrise hike to the summit of a mountain (on purpose), a crew not meeting time goals throughout the day and ending up hiking until midnight (not on purpose!). Whether an epic is intentional or not, they teach grit and teamwork in an intense setting, which creates a great learning opportunity (self growth through challenge !!). We epic'ed ourselves because it would be fun to night paddle as well as to push ourselves and our milage... oh the joy of expeditioning with all Outward Bound instructors. We had a solid 18 hour paddle that involved picking up a ton of trash, seeing a bunch of alligators, and many other fun and funny moments. The photos below will help to tell the story better. With our first mini canoe expedition behind us, we are moving on in our road trip! Today we head to Hollywood, FL to do service at the Hollywood office. This office is a home base for the family coordinators and instructors to work and do follow up with students after the wilderness part of a FINS course. We are excited to learn more about this area of NCOBS and to experience south Florida!
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