Day Of Caring

On Friday, August 22 all National City's in LaPorte County locked their doors at noon and headed off to "volunteer" for a Day of Caring with the United Way. We actually got paid because the district manager made it a mandatory task. We had fun while we were doing it, but sorry to everyone in the county who wanted to cash their paychecks...(Just so everyone knows, I do volunteer on my own time. I volunteered 4 hours a week in a first grade class room last year, and this year I am spending one of my days off each week in a 6th grade language arts classroom.)

Here is the whole bunch of us. This is only the MC Branches. Here we are holding the sign that the Barker Woods Enrichment Center made for us. We also got lunch from Jimmy John's Catered in, it was GOOOOOD.

My first task was to wash all of the bikes and trikes. Then I oiled all of the chains and every turning thing on them all with WD40. I must have done a good job, because when the kids came out to play later that day one boy yelled, "Man this thing is really fast now!"

Eileen and I then worked together to pull the grass out of the playground rocks. This was HAAARRRRD work...and my nails were nasty gross after we were done.

I went over to see what everyone else was up to over in the play house section....big mistake! They were sweeping the basketball courts when they got a great idea to clean under that basketball hoop...yeah, let's just say that this little guy and about 500 of his friends and family members are out of a home now.

Here is my team members, minus Carol who was at Ball State dropping her son off for college. First is our Branch Manager Joe, Next is our CSLeader, Carrie- she has been with the bank for 7 years. There I am, Next to me is Abby- and behind her is Andy... and yes, he is squatting just slightly because he is way tall. Everyone comments on his height when they come into the branch.

After our nice little break from the heat, it was time to move a massive pile of wet, dried and wet again Cardboard boxes. In this process, three little mice also lost their home. They were fast too.

Yeah, I wasn't talking little boxes- I they were huge. Here I am trying to "roll" it up. There was a long walk to the other side of the building for the dumpster. My arms were nice and tired when we were done.

After our work was done, we took a tour of the facilities. Here is the world's smallest toilet. The lady said that regulations for childcare prevent them from using a training potty, so they had to get this itty-bitty toilet for the 2 year olds bathroom.

*************************************************************

Carrie and I worked the day on Saturday, and it was not as bad as we expected. We thought we would be crazy busy, and would get yelled at a lot. However, that did not happen. Two people called to be sure we were open today, and one person asked what all we did through the drive thru. We would like to think this is the end of it, but... next week may prove to have a few more angry customers, we'll just have to wait and see...