We’ve been working hard all week and today we have our first day off. Besides sleeping in a little bit we are planning to use it to explore the city (in groups) on our own and then our leader from PNOLA and SAFER, Jim, is going to give us a full tour of the city. On Thursday and Friday I worked with a group on Ms. Chris’ house. We weren’t able to meet her but it was still really rewarding. We primed and painted her whole house in two days! I think I may have gotten about as much paint on my clothing as I did on the walls but it was so worth it. I think yesterday was my favorite day of work, even if I am extremely sore today. We worked on the KABOOM! playground at a local elementary school. It was a truly inspiring event. The group of 200 plus volunteers who were a mixture of community members, Capital One employees, University of New Orleans athletes, and another group of community service volunteers from Ohio, worked together to construct a full playground in only 6 hours. Everyone was split into different groups so that you were able to interact with different people. I was assigned to the mulch group. We moved a HUGE pile of mulch from the spot it was dumped to the playground. I worked alongside a woman who works from Capital One and we ended up talking about her experience with Hurrican Katrina. She lives by the 17th Street levee that broke and as a result her house was under 6 feet of water. She was the first person who I have been able to talk to on a one-to-one basis about their Hurrican story. Hopefully next week I’ll be able to talk to even more people and hear their take on the storm and how they have been able to recover afterwards.