Distance: 0
Conditions: Heat
Terrain: Hotel steps
This post is supposed to be in order - my apologies if it doesn't end up that way.
7am wakeup? I can deal with that. We all shuffled out of the
hotel and went to a local diner that has been sponsoring us for a while. Every
year the same waitress requests to wait on the JOH guys. We had a delicious
meal of pancakes, eggs, sausage, and coffee. It was a great start to the day. Then
we all went to a nearby elementary
school to put on a Kids on the Block puppet show for the Arc of Central
Nebraska. Afterwards, we went to a local park to play games and eat lunch with
them. They’re a local group that visits with JOH North and the Build America
teams every year. They help to provide job opportunities to people with
disabilities. Among the ACN are some extremely notable people. Pi Alphas from
all over had told their chapter brothers on the trip this year to look out for
Brad. Brad is a fun loving, caring, hilarious individual that is always
smiling. He also doesn’t lose in arm wrestling. Seriously – he doesn’t lose.
Practically our whole team challenged him and he took everyone down.
At the park I played whiffle ball with a lot of the ACN
people, and I took the role of coach for the new Huskers whiffle ball team. My
team absolutely killed it. With hardly any instruction and a lot of brute
force, the Huskers beat the JOH North guys by a score that was too high to
count.
After the park visit we went to see the facilities that the
ACN employs their clients at. We visited two places, one called Mosaic that
uses recycled material to make anything from candles to doormats to home décor.
The other was an organization that employs people within the ACN to sort and
package parts for machinery. They all use an assembly line-like structure and
can get hundreds of boxes packed in
just a couple of days. It was very cool to see these people hard at work and
loving what they do.
Everyone then gathered and went to a church to have dinner
and put on another puppet show. Everyone got to socialize, play lawn games like
bocce ball and ladder golf, and enjoy each other’s company. The puppet show was
a huge hit. We’ve done it so many times that we’ve begun to adlib certain parts
and get a lot of laughs from the crowd. We love putting on the show.
It was tough to say goodbye to the ACN since we had made
such a strong bond with them. Meeting everyone was amazing and I’m really
getting more and more out of every friendship visit we make.
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