“Life's most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others? "- Martin Luther King Jr.

Today we remember a life by attempting, in some small way, to make the lives of others better. If I could choose a way to be remembered, I would want people to pay-it forward for me, since simply remembering someone does nothing to make the world any better.

My team and I were the kick-off site for a 13 site clean-up in Sacramento City Public Schools.  We worked at PS-7, an incredibly high-achieving, but underfunded and understaffed public school in the Sacramento City Unified School District.  They have no money for janitors or a maintenance crew, so we (along with 100 or so Kaiser Permanente employees) were it.  Since we were the kick-off site, the mayor showed up, along with a half-dozen or so media outlets.  I tried to avoid those like the plague.  It wasn't always possible.

We got to PS-7 at 5:15am, set up and waited.  After leading people through registration, breakfast, and the many speeches of pontificating politicians and CEO's, we got to work. We each led a group of volunteers to do a specific  clean-up task.  I had the great multi-purpose room scrub down. With a team of 5 volunteers  and another Americorps member under my wing, we dusted windows, scrubbed walls and tables, swept and mopped.  Since a team of 7 could knock that out in about and hour and a half, we moved on to moving tables and chairs and organizing other classrooms. I thought it went pretty well, all in all.

In other news, my life at Woodlake Elementary School is going pretty well.  I'm working with a class of 3rd graders.  They are pretty wonderful.  I basically help with homework and independent work. Some kids need so much help, others need to be pushed and challenged, it's never boring.  I also get to plan a science lesson for every Friday! In California, all the kids are tested on are Math and Reading, so science and social studies are ignored.  Also, my teacher is not scientifically-inclined, therefore it is not taught to my students.   
It's not a physically demanding task, but mentally it can be terribly taxing.  The kids tell you horror stories of their home lives and sometimes all you want to do is not let that kid go back to that home at the end of the day, but you smile and send them on their way.  It's all you can do.  I hope that I can give them some confidence and affection during the day, if they don't get it at home. I will be sad to leave them.  I hope they get another Americorps team next round, I don't want any improvements the school makes while we are here fall to the wayside after we leave.

I think the main thing I have learned, so far, in this oft-terrible program is that I truly can do anything.  There really is always a way to get what you really want done, done.  I've stood on 60 degree slopes of mountainsides swinging a machete like a madwoman, I've led a group of disgruntled volunteers, I've even faced a class of 35 9-year old's armed with balloons and a recently-acquired knowledge of static electricity.  The last being, by far, the scariest.  After this year, I really do believe whatever I truly want, I can get.