On our final day in Aurora, we spent the morning helping out with a fundraising hike for Hesed House, one of the organizations we worked with during the week. The Hike for Hesed is an annual fundraiser for the organization that starts at Hesed House and runs along the Fox River. The PVs did a variety of jobs to help the hike run smoothly. There was a great turnout for the event (lots of people and lots of dogs, including a couple of PV dogs) and it raised $30,000 for Hesed House.

After the hike the PV trip was officially over. It was a great week! In the coming week we will be posting additional pictures as well as links to the organizations we worked with. A big thank you to Bruce and Susan for housing the PVs and setting up all the activities for the week. You guys made this week special!

On our final day in Aurora, we spent the morning helping out with a fundraising hike for Hesed House, one of the organizations we worked with during the week. The Hike for Hesed is an annual fundraiser for the organization that starts at Hesed House and runs along the Fox River. The PVs did a variety of jobs to help the hike run smoothly. There was a great turnout for the event (lots of people and lots of dogs, including a couple of PV dogs) and it raised $30,000 for Hesed House.

After the hike the PV trip was officially over. It was a great week! In the coming week we will be posting additional pictures as well as links to the organizations we worked with. A big thank you to Bruce and Susan for housing the PVs and setting up all the activities for the week. You guys made this week special!

Friday, the group spent the day working at the offices of World Relief, helping with a citizenship workshop. The volunteers sat with people who were in the final stages of becoming a US Citizen and helped them complete the 10 page application, as it can get rather confusing. The PVs had a special training on completely the applications a few nights before, so we would be ready to assist. The day was a very different and wonderful experience for the volunteers, that touched them and they will carry with them for years to come.

We also said goodbye to several volunteers during the day. We decided to go out for dinner in downtown Aurora with those remaining, for a celebration of the week. We ate at an Irish pub on the river, so afterward we strolled along the river and enjoyed a beautiful fall evening.

Today we worked at Mutual Grounds, an organization that works with women who have suffered domestic violence or sexual assault. They run their organization out of a old mansion, that used to house the mayor of Aurora. They don’t spend any money on maintenance and rely upon volunteers to help maintain the property. Today we pitched in and helped to week throughout the grounds. It was a gorgeous day to be outside.

For dinner tonight we were treated to roasted chicken,  potatoes and lots of other goodies. Between dinner and reflection we has a bit of down time, so banana grams and hearts games were played.

This evening we had our closing prayer service since we will be losing a couple volunteers tomorrow. We shared about the work we did with our hands this week. Even though we are winding down, we are excited for the remaining two service opportunities.

Today we split up for part of the day so we can tackle a larger number of projects. In the morning part of the group went back to Hesed House to finish putting together the furniture that we started assembling on Sunday. We are happy to report everything is together and ready to be set up.

The other part of the group went to Our Lady of Good Counsel to help move furniture and organize in their old church building. The building looked great after the volunteers were done.

We all met up for lunch at Bruce’s before heading out to help set up an apartment for a refuge family arriving from the Congo tonight. As part of their mission, World Relief helps to welcome newly arrived refuges with an apartment all set up and ready for when the family arrives. With all the changes and adjustments that they have to make, the hope is to at least make that part a little easier. World Vision continues to work with the newly arrived folks with ESL classes and numerous other services.

We were a bit rushed, but we had a great Mexican feast for dinner. Very tasty and very filling. After dinner we had our nightly reflection, and then headed over to Northern Illinois University for their Wednesday evening Mass. NIU and the PVs have partnered for a spring break service trip each year since 1998. It was great to connect with the NIU students outside of their time during spring break trips in WV. 

Today we split up for part of the day so we can tackle a larger number of projects. In the morning part of the group went back to Hesed House to finish putting together the furniture that we started assembling on Sunday. We are happy to report everything is together and ready to be set up.

The other part of the group went to Our Lady of Good Counsel to help move furniture and organize in their old church building. The building looked great after the volunteers were done.

We all met up for lunch at Bruce’s before heading out to help set up an apartment for a refuge family arriving from the Congo tonight. As part of their mission, World Relief helps to welcome newly arrived refuges with an apartment all set up and ready for when the family arrives. With all the changes and adjustments that they have to make, the hope is to at least make that part a little easier. World Vision continues to work with the newly arrived folks with ESL classes and numerous other services.

We were a bit rushed, but we had a great Mexican feast for dinner. Very tasty and very filling. After dinner we had our nightly reflection, and then headed over to Northern Illinois University for their Wednesday evening Mass. NIU and the PVs have partnered for a spring break service trip each year since 1998. It was great to connect with the NIU students outside of their time during spring break trips in WV. 

Today we returned to the future Emanuel House offices to continue gutting out the insides. At the end of the day there were a lot of tired, dusty bodies, but happy to have been of help. To celebrate the end of two great, hot days, we managed to find a Dairy Queen and enjoyed a nice and frosty treats.

For dinner tonight we had a delicious beef stroganoff and salad. After dinner we were given a wonderful presentation from World Relief. First, information about their programs with refuges and second, on immigration issues. Very interesting and informative. Both of these programs we will be working with later this week.

After the long day we wrapped up the day with a nice reflection about beacons of hope we have seen thus far this week.