Tevis Austin

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Off to School

Hard to believe but both kids are off to school this year.  Brendon started first grade.  Megan is in Kindergarten.

Summer Serve - Philadelphia

We made it back from our trip to Philadelphia last Saturday.  It ended up being a great week.  There were 58 of us who went. We stayed at a church located across from what is considered the most diverse high school in America. 

On Sunday, some of us attended the church in the picture above where the service was in both Spanish and English.  Another group of us attended a Haitian church were they served us an authentic Haitian meal.  The service was in both Creole and English.

We were in Philly on July 4, so we decided that we had to see fireworks.  We made our way downtown where thousands of people gathered for food, music, and fireworks.  We decided to wear our Summer Serve shirts.  It made it great for being in a large crowd of people, but it also made things great for all the people who kept staring at us.  We got several questions about "Summer Serve."  Some people thought we were playing tennis.  We were directed to a place where multiple people, including the yellow shirt events people, told us we would see the main concert and great fireworks.  Tragically, after waiting several hours, the fireworks lasted only around 15 minutes, and we could barely see them due to trees.  Everyone of us will remember the time we made it to Philly on July 4th and we could barely see the fireworks.  

Our group served at four locations during the week.  Two groups traveled an hour to serve. One of these groups helped with various projects and partnered with the church to care for kids in the community.  Another group that traveled an hour helped paint someone's house.  They went back a second day to finish.  I think it was because they got to paint the house Ohio State colors. A third group did various construction projects at the place where we were staying.  These projects included concrete repair, fence repair, and electrical work.

The fourth group served at a local park in the community.  In the mornings, we scraped and painted a fence in the park.  It was a fence that another group had started the week before, and we still weren't able to finish it.  Here is a picture to give you an appreciation for how long the fence really was. This doesn't even show the fence that was behind me.

We helped clean up the park and streets.  We would talk with neighbors as they walked.  We heard stories about how some of the neighbors have even started helping work on the fence.  Some neighbors have been known to help clean up the streets. 

In the afternoons, we would play with kids in the neighborhood. We would play basketball, kickball, and we had things for the kids to make.  So many of the neighbors expressed appreciation for our help.

A group of us traveled to see the Liberty Bell one evening. 

We also ran up the art museum steps, and those of us who saw the movie Rocky pretended to be Rocky.  The rest of the group kept asking who Rocky was.

 

At the end of the week, we had a BBQ for the neighborhood. I got to help grill over 100 hamburgers.  The grill was so hot that the hairs on my arms had been singed.  Some of the neighbors asked us why we would give up a week to come to Philly and help their neighborhood. 

We ended the week with a free day.  Half of our group took a tour of Philly and the other half went to Ocean City.  I'm sure I would have really liked the tour, but I decided to go to the beach and relax.