Where Do People Volunteer?

According to this graph published in a study by the state of Maine on volunteerism among it's citizens. I consider this graph to be fairly representative of the majority of states. What I found to be interesting was that Civic community service and volunteering for social services were not the highest, I assumed that those areas of service would be fairly high in percentage.

March 27th

On March twenty seventh I worked my second Saturday at the Habitat for Humanity build site at Edes Avenue. My second Saturday I volunteered to join the paint crew, coincidentally with the same crew leader as the previous week. We ended up having to do a little more than just painting though! We spent the first three hours cleaning up trash and decrepit furniture that homeless people had amassed on the Habitat for Humanity staging lot. This was pretty gross, there were a lot of empty pill bottles and moldy couch cushions, and after three hours I was so glad to be done. We then had our lunch break and we got to talk to some of the other volunteers and to some of the home owners, and that was really fulfilling. After lunch we began painting the wall panels, big plywood sheets that were much, much heavier than they looked. After painting panels in the direct sun for four hours I was rocking a pretty rad sunburn, which still has my left shoulder reduced to a stinging mass of redness, and some good sized blisters from the plywood. I also was basically covered in "Sea Breeze Blue" paint, which although meant for the houses ended up in my hair and all over my clothes.
I had an amazing time at both of my shifts and I feel like I will definitely be returning to volunteer my time for some shifts this summer.

Saturday March 20th

Saturday March 20th was my first day volunteering for Habitat for Humanity. At this point I feel like I have researched a lot and learned quite a bit about homelessness in our region of the world. Now I feel that I am prepared to begin chronicling my experiences at the build site. The twentieth was a really gorgeous day, not to hot but definitely not at all cold. Compared to my work the following week, this day was pretty easy breezy and the only bad side effects was some neck pain from craning my head to get paint up all day. I spent most of the day up on the scaffolds painting under the eaves and erecting walls inside some of the houses. Some of the homeowners were there and it was a really cool experience to spend the morning working on their future homes, and then share Gatorade with them at the lunch break.

The Habitat for Humanity fact sheet page pretty much outlines the program and I found it to be an excellent source of information prior to beginning work

Poor Polar Bears :(

Although some people still maintain that global warming is a myth, in my opinion it is indisputable that mankind is having some adverse on our earth's weather. This video about the effects of global warming on polar bears habitats and I found it to be very informative.

Progression in Nuclear Arms Eradication

President Obama has long espoused the rather ambitious goal of ridding the world of all nuclear weapons. A recent article in The Guardian discusses how Obama's campaign against nuclear warfare was boosted last night when Russia indicated that there has been agreement between the two nations on a historic nuclear arms reduction treaty. Although it has not been announced that any deal has been struck, White House officials did say that the two nations are "very close" to agreeing upon a treaty, going so far as to say that one of the only steps left was for the two presidents to agree upon a treaty signing date. I think it is very good that in the past couple decades our two nations have progressed so far on the issue of nuclear arms.

Hee Hee

Haha Oh I love Flight of the Conchords..

Aid To the Homeless in Contra Costa County

Several years ago I volunteered at my church tutoring homeless children and helping set out a lunch buffet. My church, Saint Perpetua's, participated in a rotation where homeless families would spend one week at a church and then move to a different church, where they were provided with food, shelter and services for their kids. Ever since then I have been curious about homeless shelters in Contra Costa County. I did some research and one organization that popped up was Contra Costa Interfaith Housing, this is a non profit organization dedicated to ending the struggles of homeless people in Contra Costa County. The program's main goal is to promote self sustainability and to break the cycle of homelessness. According to some statistics on the website Contra Costa County has the eleventh highest homeless population in our entire nation! That really shocked me.