Online Dating Profile

This week seemed to fly by. Here's a recap of everything that happened:

Monday: We started our week off with our team meeting, catching each other up on the different things we are working on. It was good to hear about what people needed from the rest of the team and to see where they were at in their tasks. One of the team members who is in charge of communications and outreach has started a CE team blog. It will inform people about what we are up to in the office. She has also decided to add team member spotlights to talk about each person on the team. Basically, we had to send her an online dating profile blurb and a few pictures. Hopefully people get a kick out of my little blurb.

'Garden State' looking bathroom

After the meeting, my service partner and I worked on the project list yet again, adding a few more projects. We decided to add a chevron design for the length of the hallway on the second and third floors which would require about 10-15 volunteers. Slowly, but surely we will hit the 200 mark for the ideal number of volunteers.
Around 11AM, we left the office for the Women's Leadership Luncheon at the Union League.
It was really cool to be invited to something like this, especially because it was held in a room that women used to not be allowed in. There were portraits of old, white men all around the room. I presume they were men who held higher positions in the Union League, but I can't be sure.

Fancy schmancy

The keynote speaker was Mika Brzezinski, a female co-host on Morning Joe on MSNBC. She talked a lot about women in the workplace and how we need to stop apologizing all of the time and start asking for what we deserve. It was an interesting way to look at the glass ceiling situation and was awesome to hear it from a successful female. I really enjoyed being there.
Sadly, the food was not something I was excited about. It was a salad with salmon and raspberry vinaigrette. I just ate some bread and cheesecake. Healthy lunch, right? At least the bread and cheesecake were delicious!
The whole point of the luncheon was 1) to show women in leadership roles and 2) to raise money for City Year Philadelphia. The goal was to raise $50,000 from the event and the development office (DEVO) raised over $53,000. WOOHOO! It was an exciting thing in the office when we returned from the event. DEVO was extremely proud of themselves, as they should be, for exceeding their goal. Hopefully this is a good sign for other fundraisers that will be happening throughout the year.

CE team chillin with Mika

Around 4:15PM, I received an email about SEPTA. They've narrowed it down to two designs, one of which needs to be modified. I am ecstatic that they have gotten back to us. Looks like this project will be moving forward pretty soon!

Tuesday: Only a five of us were in the office. It makes quite the difference when you're on a team of eight. I spent my morning updating the SEPTA designs from the feedback we received. It took longer than expected because I was apparently doing everything the hard way.
My teammate showed me an easier way to make lines, which would have been my savior in college, but hey, you live and you learn. I'll just chalk it up to me getting more practice before learning the shortcuts (four years later...).
After half of my morning disappeared due to photoshop, I spent the other half of my morning making 'One Pagers' describing the projects for cyServes. We still don't know if the projects have been approved, but I'd rather have the One Pagers done and make edits to them once the projects are finalized.
After lunch, I finished the first draft of the One Pagers. My service partner and another teammate headed to the service project site around 3PM to meet with the principal and to see the space. And then there were three of us in the office...
Around 3:30PM, the remainder of the CE team was asked to help pack backpacks for students. There was a back to school drive at a few Starbucks, one of City Year's partners, and we needed to help distribute everything.

Just some of the backpacks...

First we organized everything by item: Notebooks, binders, folders, pens, pencils, crayons, colored pencils, glue, tape, scissors, backpacks, and miscellaneous. This took a good chunk of time since there were at least fifteen boxes of stuff. There were four of us working on this. (We gained another corps member who was in the office.) This took about an hour. Once everything was organized by item, we started packing backpacks. It was an easy task, but it required a lot of bending. There were over 100 backpacks to stuff and only four people to do so. (Technically five because one of the Program Director's daughters was helping us as well.) Regardless, we had to complete this task by 5:45PM, which was seemingly impossible.
We stuffed more than half of the bags in our remaining time. We straightened up the room as much as possible to prepare to finish the backpacks on Wednesday. We were told that the bags needed to be completed by 8:45AM since there was a meeting for all of the Program Managers in the same space we were working in. We had faith we would be able to complete it on Wednesday morning.

Wednesday: I usually get to the office around 7:50AM every morning. It was helpful this morning so I could finish the backpacks. We worked efficiently this morning and packed the remaining backpacks and made boxes for the four high schools we serve in. Everything was cleaned up by 8:45AM. Go CE Team!
After an exciting hour, we made our way to our desks. I spent the remainder of my morning working on editing projects since my service partner met with the principal on Tuesday. It was nice to just hammer out a bunch of stuff while rocking out to some good music. (Check out KONGOS, Bleachers, HAIM, Twin Atlantic, and The Hunts if you're looking for some new music...)
When I came back from lunch, my PM said there was a surprise on my desk. I was ecstatic when I saw it was my official City Year name tag! It's the little things in life.

Feelin' official

I spent the afternoon listening to music while editing and modifying more projects for cyServes.
While sitting at our desks, we heard a noise at the vending machine. It was the snack machine spitting out a dollar and no one was there. Naturally, two people on the team called the dollar to be theirs, but one person actually ran over and snatched it. It was probably the highlight of my day, aside from getting my name tag.
Around 5PM, myself and two other team members met to discuss the projects for cyServes.
It was nice to get people on the same page and talk through any concerns they might have had about the different projects. It was definitely a good way to end the day.

Thursday: Our projects leaders forgot that they had a meeting, so we were on our own for most of the day. One of our teammates was running late so the four of us who were in the office headed to the service site to finish measuring and planning out project placements. Our fifth teammate met us at the school and helped us nail out some details.
We spent the entire morning at the school and headed back to the office around 12:30PM. We decided to stop and grab lunch at Primo's before getting back to the office, which ate up another half hour. By the time we got back to our desks, it was about 1PM. Quite the productive first half of the day if you ask me!
After lunch, our PLs returned from their meeting. We caught them up on everything we did at the school and then got to work.
I spent the rest of my afternoon putting together two documents of individual states with their names, capitals, and year each became part of the USA for a mural in one of the stairwells of the school.
I was sitting between two PLs who were working on their first aid online certification and kept getting distracted by them. It was pretty funny to listen to them rant about the training.
The day pretty much flew by because of our field trip in the morning and the chill afternoon at the office, and for that I am thankful.

Friday: The day started off pretty slow. My service partner and I needed our PL to read over the project list materials and make changes she saw fit before we could proceed with anything else. I decided to research the Peace Corps a bit while I waited. I'm trying to figure out my plans after City Year and the Peace Corps is definitely something I've been thinking about, much to my mother's dismay. (Sorry, mom!) I've decided that I want to do something more meaningful with my life. I want to help others in some way. I think that the Peace Corps would be a great way to do this. I would be able to explore my love for other cultures and languages while making a difference. If the Peace Corps doesn't work out though, I would definitely love to stay with City Year for at least another year, working to make a difference in the lives of others within the community I serve.
Around 10:45AM, my PM approached me about SEPTA. They liked the revised designs, but (there's always a but....) the community wants the bridge's lattice design incorporated somehow. Here I was thinking the' K' shape of the bridge was what they were talking about, but apparently there is a smaller floral type design running along the inside of the bridge. Who knew!
This task took much longer than I anticipated, working me right until lunch.
After lunch, I started researching ideas for our next event, MLK day, which could have over 900 people at it. My service partner and I have found that we work better when we research potential project ideas before even visiting the space so we have a general idea of things to do. It helps speed up the process of creating a project list if we have some things laid out in the beginning.

Our lovely unit

Around 1:30PM, the PLs had a meeting with our PM. They decided that we would have a meeting with everyone to discuss the project list, what we need from storage for prep on Monday and for the rest of the week, and then head to storage.
At 3:15PM, we had our long awaited meeting. It took about a half hour for us to go through each and every project for October 25th. At the end of the meeting, everyone was on the same page and was excited to start prepping next week.
After the meeting, myself and a PL headed to storage to get everything for prep next week. When all was said and done, we were back at the office around 5:35PM.
At the end of the day, we found out that we will be starting our day at 9AM all next week since we will be prepping past 5:45PM. I cannot tell you how excited I am to sleep in next week. We also found out that we will be at two press conferences on Monday, which I will disclose next week after they happen.

Next week is going to be a busy one, but I am really excited to see everything come together.

Have an amazing weekend!

Cheers,
Allee

PS: Click here for the CE Blog if you are interested in reading it!