US Service Days

As we prepare to leave for Thanksgiving vacation and wonderful time with family, I wanted to share photos from our two days of service. During Monday and Tuesday, our students were actively involved in service projects for more than dozen organizations in the Durham and Chapel Hill area. They did everything from cooking to cleaning to building to organizing and more. Some of the work was "boring but important." Most of the work was inspiring, educational, and memorable. Staff members noted the importance of spending this type of non-classroom time with students, getting to know them better in different settings. These first pictures were taken at the Duke Lemur Center. As you can see, our students were able to get up close and personal with the lemurs!

Jamie's group worked with the Durham Land Turstees to build a retaining wall.

Here is Miles holding a tarantula at the Food Bank Learning Center

I asked staff members to give me a brief summary of what their service groups did. I am happy to share these updates with you.

FRANCES (LEMUR CENTER)

Our group worked to blaze a new trail through one of the several acre enclosures at the Lemur Center. This path will help the keepers to lead the lemurs through the forest to and from their feeders. We then worked on weeding and regravelling the outdoor cages of one of the larger lemur living quarters, a job that is redone twice a year. We worked hard, but were rewarded by Coqueral shifakas and ring-tailed lemurs coming from the forest to watch us working in their cages! The work was valuable to the Lemur Center and we were more than rewarded with experiences provided by these wonderful creatures.

JAMIE (DURHAM COMMUNITY LAND TRUSTEES)

Six students worked to build a retaining wall in West End Community neighborhood in Durham. The DCLT renovates houses in the West End Community and sells them to individuals at an affordable price. Our students have worked with them and their construction foreman Carl for over 15 years. Our group not only constructed the 30 x 5-foot wall out of pieces of cement block, we also cut back the slope in preparation for the wall, broke slabs of concrete to the right size, hauled all the blocks in place, and dug a drainage ditch above the wall. We did 2 days of very hard physical labor. The effort of our team was very rewarding and nothing short of heroic. (!)

BOB (SEEDS AND FOOD BANK)

At Seeds, we pulled weeds, mulched around new seedlings, and raked leaves. At the Food Bank, we went through boxes of discarded canned goods, decided if they were still ok to eat, and then relabeled and boxed the good ones. We set up an assembly line and worked very efficiently. We talked about all the wasted food, the really good work being done to get food to people who would otherwise go hungry, and what it would be like to work on an assembly line for 10 hours a day and 6 days a week for all of your adult life.

GUSTAVO (URBAN MINISTRIES)

We organized clothing donations by separating and shelving pants, shirts, and shoes. Another group organized the food and helped with preparing lunch. The entire group served over 100 meals for lunch.

BRYCE AND JON (CAROLINA TIGER RESCUE)

We had a lovely warm Indian summer day and were first assigned to clear brush from a corner of the property in order to improve visibility for the staff into a wooded area where several tigers are already in large enclosures. Clearing required innovative use of our miscellaneous tools...and even some tree-climbing to cut the large vines free. The area we cleaned will be used when 6 new animals (3 tigers and 3 lions) are given room at the facility. After lots of weeding, hacking, yanking, and chopping, were got to see the animals, including the amazing tigers!

WILLY (ON-CAMPUS WORK)

All of the basketball team members spent their days on campus doing a lot of work, which included scrubbing floors, preparing mailings, baking brownies for Caring House, moving textbooks into storage, taking old computers to be recycled, cleaning the computer lab, raking leaves, cleaning the staff room, and beautifying the campus. We appreciate their hard work!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!