For a record third day (at least for a PV-NIU spring break trip), we woke up to more snow. Schools were canceled, therefore Head Start was canceled….again. And again, we called on everyone to be flexible and as always, everyone was.  We had planned for a small group to go to the Food Bank to help with some data entry that needed to be done and well and put the final touches on organizing for distribution day.

The Head Start crew joined the home repair crew for a snowy day of work on the ramp. We delayed starting for an hours to let the highways clear, but there was still plenty of snow on the ground and on our ramp build. No only that, but it snowed quite a bit during the day. One of the students mentioned at one point it felt like we were in a snow globe, and there couldn’t have been a better description. Luckily everyone was more than will to be cold to get as much work done as we could so that we can make sure to finish it for the home owner by the end of the week.

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After sites we were all treated to a wonderful dinner by the Made New Community, who make The Way their home. They had mentioned that they wanted to do a cookout to thank the students for spending their spring break serving others. We thought they were crazy with the weather, but it was delicious and it was a wonderful evening spent in fellowship.

Even with an inch or so of snow overnight and flurries during the work day, everything was able to go off as planned.  Three volunteers happily made their way to Bailyesville Head Start for a day with the kids. Even though Bailyesville Head Start is not the closest for the group to go, NIU has built a wonderful relationship with the teachers over the past several years and are always eager to go see the teachers and students.

A second group of students went to St. Vincent dePaul in Pineville to help with several projects. Their main focus for the day was to sort through hundreds of envelopes of seed and organized them so they can be distributed at the Food Bank on distribution day. The hope with the seed project is that families will be able to have their own gardens and grow their own produce. After they finished up with the seeds, they did some cleaning in the building.

The third group went to our home repair site in Lynco. Having missed yesterday we were a little worried about being able to finish up before the end of the week, but we made a ton of progress today, framing most of the ramp. Here is a slide show of the progress:

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One of the most important traits of being a PV is to be flexible and today the NIU students were VERY flexible. We woke in the morning to the news that the schools would be closed due to weather, therefore no Head Start. Next was the news that the roads were snowy and slippery in parts of the county delaying the delivery of the lumber for our home repair site. This coupled with the fact that it was cold and snowy meant no home repair site. The one planned site of the day that continued as planned was the painting of the floor at the Itmann Food Bank. The whole group ended up going to the Food Bank and lending a hand in this task, as well as organizing and prepping for distribution day on Friday. Again we appreciate everyone’s flexibility and willingness to go with the flow. Tomorrow’s weather looks to be better. Still some snow showers foretasted and colder, but definitely weather we can work with!

Our morning attempt to go to the lumber store. Over the river and through the wood…

The students beginning the big project of painting the Itmann Food Bank floor