May 02

One With Nature

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It seemed rather appropriate that we spent today, May Day, outside all day. Our activity for the day was working with Nature Consortium helping to keep the many parks in West Seattle alive and well. Through their Urban Forest Restoration Program, we worked with Nature Consortium at Firefly park removing invasive species of blackberries along the trail. By removing the blackberry bushes, it allows the native species of plants and trees to grow and provide a stable environment for the forest to grow and flourish. It was a great day of hard work in the sunshine! (There are more pictures from our work day, but we are having a technical difficulty getting to post…will post more later)

The crew heading off to work

After our work was done, we headed down to Alki Beach in West Seattle to have our annual bonfire on the beach. We had a few folks join us for a hot dog roast, relaxing and watching the sunset over the mountains. It was such a peaceful and relaxing evening out in nature.

I mean, who wouldn’t want to volunteer here : )

Dinner time!

Our parting shot

May 01

Only Serve Love

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Our morning commute

The morning started off with probably one of the more unique PV commutes to a job site, West Seattle to Downtown via a water taxi.

Our destination for today’s service activity was OSL, (www.oslserves.org) a wonderful organization that serves three meals a day, seven days a week working with more than 32 partner organizations. In 2017 they served a total of 648,908 meals. The eight PVs were tasked with working in their main kitchen preparing meals. We sorted bread, cleaned fruits and veggies and did anything that was asked of us. After the prep work was done, we served the meal at Compass House, whose kitchen OSL uses. Once that was complete and the volunteers ate, we headed up to the OSL’s outdoor meal site under the freeway. There we were able to serve more than 200 people who came for warm, hearty meal. This site is unique as anyone can come and have a meal here, three meals a day, seven days a week, no questions asked.

Hard at work in the kitchen

PVs after serving lunch at the outdoor meal site

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PVs and friends : )

Once we wrapped up our full day with OSL, it was time to take advantage of the fact we were downtown and explore the city. We went to the Pike Place Market, the infamous Gum Wall and down to the waterfront. By the time we stepped back onto the water taxi for our trip home we were ready to rest out feet.

As with all PV experiences, finished up the day with a shared meal and spent time reflecting on the day together.

Apr 30

Volunteers Begin to Arrive in Seattle

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Today, two of our volunteers that traveled for the service week in Seattle arrived. They left cold, snowy Minnesota to be welcomed to sunny and relatively warm temperatures of Seattle. After a long flight we decided to stretch our legs a bit a go for a hike in Discovery Park. Discovery Park is a 534 acre natural area park, the largest in the city with beautiful views of Puget Sound and lots of green, mossy forests to walk through. While it ended up being a little more grueling of a hike than planned (due to the navigator getting all turned around) we did have so gorgeous views looking back over Puget Sound towards West Seattle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the hike we returned back to our home base for the week and had an orientation to the week and discussed some of the issues and struggles that many in the city are now facing. We wrapped up the evening with the PV Commissioning Service. We are looking forward to our first day tomorrow! We hope you follow along on this journey with us.

Apr 27

Seattle PV Week and Food for Thought Friday – April 27th

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The Seattle PV Week is almost here! Volunteers start arriving on Sunday for what is setting up to be a great week. During the week, volunteers will be working with six different social service agencies in the Seattle area. Activities include: serving meals (like the group above from December), distributing food, clothing and other necessary items, cooking meals for several shelters and going out with the Union Gospel Mission night van to bring needed supplies and support to those living on the streets of Seattle. We will be posting each day, so we hope you will follow along with us and keep all the volunteers in your thoughts and prayers.

Apr 20

Food for Thought Friday – April 20th

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HAPPY VOLUNTEER APPRECIATION WEEK!!!ย  Thank you to every PV who has given of their time to help others. Because there is people like you out there who care, the world is a kinder place. A special shout out to the ladies in this picture. They first encountered the PVs as campers at our PEACE Camp in Bedford Stuyvesant, formed a young women’s empowerment group with the PVs and have gone on to be volunteers and shining examples in their community. We are so proud of you!!!