2009 Alternative Break Project

From PhiSigmaPiWiki

During his State of the Fraternity Address during National Convention in Louisville, KY, National President Jonah Goodman announced the location of the 2009 Alternative Break Project. The Project would take place at Shelby Middle School in Shelby Mississippi and was given the name "Playing to learn at Shelby Middle School."

Shelby Middle School

Shelby Middle School, located in Bolivar County Mississippi, is a Public School with approximately 253 students. Currently, 99% of students within the Bolivar County School district is eligible for the free or reduced-price lunch program.

The Trip

On January 5th, 2009, 13 Brothers, along with Director of Member Services Anika Jackson, arrived in Shelby. Between January 5th and January 10th, the Alternative Break Project Corp Members began setting up an educational pond for students. Brothers also had the opportunity to shadow Teach For America Corps Members, interact with students, assist in the organization of dominoes for an after-school mural project, and have potluck dinners with Teach For America Corp Members. A trip to the BB King Museum also occurred to show Brothers Shelby history.

The Alternative Break Project Corps Members

Blog

Welcome to my daily blog of our Alternative Break Project in Shelby, Mississippi! Our goal is to build a pond for the students here at Shelby Middle School so that it can be used in their life-sciences studies. Here, you’ll be able to read about our daily adventures and successes throughout the course of the week. A special “thank you” to all the Brothers who are making this happen.

Enjoy!

Anika Jackson, Director of Member Services

Day 1: January 5, 2009

Today was supposed to be a travel day, but the adventure actually started sooner than expected. Due to poor weather conditions, some Brothers were delayed in arriving, but we all got here safely.

The excitement and commitment I see in the Brothers thus far makes me excited to see the project get underway. Despite the weather predictions of more bad weather, we’re moving forward with our plans as best we can. Our goal is to create an operational life-sciences pond for the students here at Shelby Middle School (SMS). A challenge, indeed, but well worth the long-term experiences it will provide the SMS students!

It’s great to see Brothers living the legs of our tripod!

Day 2: January 6, 2009

Brothers with Principal Mr. Lordi

What a busy day! We arrived at Shelby Middle School around 9 a.m. and were greeted by the principal, Mr. Lordi, and Coach Cooper, who teaches sixth grade math and coaches at least two sports. Both of these men were excited to see us and we were excited to get to work!

After watching a brief “how-to” video about installing a pond, Coach Cooper led us to the worksite. While the main hole for the pond had been dug, there was still plenty of digging to be done. We dug a “lip” around the top portion of the pond to allow fish to eat, as well as a 4’x4’x4’ hole for the bog, a whole for the filtration system and a hole for the waterfall. Yes…we were digging!

Brothers get to work

After a brief lunch break, we were back at the worksite to “fine-tune” our digging work before the rain came and forced us back inside. Admittedly, it was hard to get some Brothers to leave the site even though our work for today was done!

Tonight, we attended a Southern-style, home-cooked, pot luck welcome dinner hosted by the Shelby community. Great meal aside (some Brothers got really excited about the cornbread, collard greens and banana pudding), it was great to meet so many people who’ve lived in Shelby all their lives and could tell about the many connections they have to the community.

Many from the community who attended, including the Shelby mayor, president of the Shelby Chamber of Commerce and assistant superintendent for the school district, expressed how excited they were to see a national organization commit so much to their “small town.” From their personal stories, we learned about the true dedication from the people of Shelby to their community and students.

Due to heavy rain/storms predicted to move into the area tomorrow, we'll be in elementary, middle and high school classrooms to interact with students tomorrow instead of Friday. Brothers have been very excited for this portion of the trip. I’m sure I’ll have some great stories to share tomorrow!

Day 3: January 7, 2009

When I woke up and looked outside this morning, I was glad that we had made the schedule change. It was raining pretty steadily.

After dropping the Brothers off at their respective schools for observation (the Brothers were split between Brooks Elementary School, Shelby Middle School and Broad Street High School), VP of Chapter Development Brother Kyle Williams and I took the opportunity to experience two schools, splitting our time between the elementary and high schools.

Brother Natalie Swierzbin with SMS Student
Brother Rebecca Torres with SMS Biology Students

We started at the high school where we sat in on a biology class, taught by first-year corps member Jason Nagle, with Brother Rebecca Torres. It was amazing to see how sharp these 10 students are! Mr. Nagle’s teaching style was very interactive, using practical examples to help students learn the material. Throughout class, he encouraged students to go to the board and fill-in-the-blank with answers to specific statements related to the topic – water and hydrophilic and hydrophobic substances.

When the students got stumped on one question, Mr. Nagle said, “Maybe our visitors can help us out.” Kyle, Rebecca and I all looked at one another, clueless as to what the answers were. Then, the students shouted out the answers. It was indeed inspiring (and shaming, all the same) to see their knowledge as high school freshmen and sophomores.

Then on to literature class, taught by first-year corps member Sarah Walker and observed by Brother Mallory Stites. Here, we learned about denotation and connotation with 15 sophomores. At the end of class, we had an opportunity to learn what each student wants to do after high school. Little did we know that we had a future pilot, two doctors, two psychologists and an archaeologist in our midst!

It was now lunch time. We ate in the cafeteria with the students where our meal took us back to grade school days – complete with the hard plastic trays and milk cartons!

Now, on to the elementary school! Kyle and I started in second-year corps member Sally Fairchild’s first grade class. There, Brothers Avery Cootes and Lacy Kelly were learning about adjectives with a class of 25 very active students who all wanted to share their adjectives with answers to every question.

Then, we moved next door to corps member Jacob Schiffin’s second grade class, where Brothers Natalie Swierzbin and Michelle Rodgers were helping students write in their journals and learn about prepositions. The subject soon changed to math, where the class learned about subtracting three-digit numbers. At the end of the school day, the students rushed to hug Natalie, Michelle, Kyle and me, asking us to come back tomorrow. Some students didn’t even want to let us go from the hugs.

The classroom experiences showed us some of the striking challenges that exist in the classrooms here. It makes so much sense that Teach For America has so many talented corps members serving these schools to provide these bright students with the structure and academic support and challenges they need to be successful – truly an eye-opener for many of the Brothers and me.

Needless to say, the rain lasted all day and when Kyle and I drove by the pond hole around midday, there was plenty of water in it (about 75% full). Tomorrow’s challenge: getting the water out of the pond so that we can correctly install the pond liner and proceed with installation. I’ve already purchased some buckets!

Day 4: January 8, 2009

Brothers Digging the Trench
Brothers Keeping the School Clean

The first thing I did this morning was check the weather. Sure enough, it was sunny outside and no rain was predicted until Saturday. Perfect!

We headed to Shelby Middle School at our usual time, with buckets in hand. As expected, we were greeted by a muddy mess of puddles and the pond was still about 75% full. We got to work – scooping the water out of the pond and digging the trench toward the school, which will be used to run power to the pond’s waterfall.

One team of Brothers hopped in the pond (about calf-deep in water) and began assembly lines to empty the buckets. Soon, Mr. Cooper arrived to check on us. He saw us struggling to get the water out of the pond. Without hesitation, he made a few calls and some of his buddies arrived with a pump. What a relief! Once we got the pump going, most of the water was out of the pond quickly, leaving a slush of mud at the bottom. The team continued trying to scoop out any remaining water, reforming our work from Monday and stabilizing the skimmer.

Meanwhile, a crew of Brothers was power-digging the electrical trench. By lunchtime (and two broken shovels later), they had created the neatest trench I’ve ever seen.

Around noon, we went in for lunch, making sure to put Wal-Mart bags over our very muddy boots. We got some questioning looks from the students, but were able to keep the school floor relatively clean. Today’s lunch consisted of school pizza, string beans, canned peaches and our choice of milk or juice carton. We took this opportunity to warm up a little and some needed the time to dry off.

After lunch, it was back to work. We started carving out the waterfall location and continued reforming the pond. Because the ground was so saturated, there wasn’t much else we could do, so we decided to call it a day. We hope that tonight, any remaining moisture in the pond and soil will dry out a bit so that we can lay the pond liner underlay and pond liner tomorrow, as well as complete the waterfall installation.

I think tomorrow will be a major turning point in the overall look of the pond. Stay tuned!


Day 5: January 9, 2009

When we arrived at the site this morning, a pool of water had unexpectedly collected on the bottom level of the pond and the upper level was still pretty saturated. Before we were able to get dismayed, we saw a tractor coming with a scoop of sand. Coach Cooper had already made a few calls for us. After two scoops of sand were dumped in the pond and Brothers spread it to absorb the moisture, we were ready to lay the pond liner underlay.

Brothers Laying Pond Liner
Brother Avery Cootes with Student at Peer Power

This project took more than half of the team’s assistance. Once the underlay was down, we were ready to lay the pond liner. The liner was very heavy, requiring every Brother’s help. We got the liner down, which was the major turning point for the project!

Then, we broke into three teams: one team worked on connecting the liner to the skimmer, another worked to begin laying large rocks in the bottom of the pond and the final group worked to dig a trench for the pipe to run from the skimmer to the waterfall and to level and pack dirt around the waterfall. Even with this being a short day of work, we got a lot accomplished. It’s finally looking like a pond!

We left the site early today to get cleaned up so that we could go back to the school to help with the afterschool program – Peer Power. Mr. Lordi had approached me about us helping with Peer Power before the Community Dinner on Monday. The Shelby students are working on an ambitious project to create a mural of Barack Obama out of dominos to be unveiled on January 20.

Our role today was to help the students sort the dominos in preparation for assembling the mural. It was a whirlwind of almost two hours, but the students are now prepared to start assembling the mural the next time they meet.

From there, we set out to Clarksdale (about 20 minutes north of Shelby) for a potluck dinner sponsored by Teach For America corps members in the area. On the way, we stopped by Clarksdale’s historic Blues Alley, where many famous blues stars are famed to have gotten their start.

Once at the corps members’ home, we were greeted by a room full of corps members who welcomed us with a spaghetti dinner and lots of great conversation and stories about their experiences in Teach For America – a great way to unwind from such a busy day.

It’s hard to believe, but tomorrow is our last day at the work site. I think we’ll have a good amount accomplished before we leave Shelby.

Day 6: January 10, 2009

Educational Pond

Today was our final workday. We arrived at the site a little sluggish, but determined to finish our project. Our goals: to finish filling the pond bottom and sides with rocks and complete the bog filtration system and waterfall installation. We were moving quickly and even had a couple of Teach For America classroom students come observe us at work. One group shouted a loud, “Thank you,” to us after they saw what the hole had become. By lunchtime, we were well ahead of schedule.

After lunch, the “trench team” (as they termed themselves) refined the trench in areas that were blocked yesterday when the tractor brought us sand. Another team of Brothers ensured that the bog and overflow areas were complete while yet another team ensured that all aspects of the waterfall were installed.

Because of school district guidelines (and for safety reasons), we were unable to fill the pond with water. A fence must be installed around the pond prior to filling. The school district will coordinate the remaining pieces of the project, including running electric to the pond and landscaping around the pond soon.

2009 Alternative Break Project Corps Members

At the workday’s end, we were all very excited to see our work. It’s hard to believe that we installed a pond, but it was surely rewarding. So rewarding that, we posed in the pond for our final group photo.

The past couple of days have truly been a demonstration of scholarship, leadership and fellowship. To see Brothers from Chapters across the nation come together and not only learn quickly how to install a pond, but to complete the project as a team is amazing. What a wonderful experience!

Tonight, we had dinner at another group of corps members’ home. This was a more intimate gathering than yesterday, but a lot of fun nonetheless. The Brothers surprised me with a “birthday celebration” since today is my birthday. My gifts: a cake, gardening gloves and icy hot. What a great way to end the workweek – thanks Brothers!

Tomorrow, we’ll start our day a bit later and travel south to the B.B. King Museum, which opened this past fall. While there, we’ll get to check out what this area is really known for – the Blues.

Day 7: January 11, 2009

Brothers at the B.B. King Museum

This morning, we started the day later than usual. Our plans for today were to have a real Southern lunch and visit the newly opened B.B. King Museum.

I went down to the lobby a little before 1 p.m. to ask the front desk attendant, “If you were in this area for only one day, where would you go to get the best Southern meal?” She gave me two suggestions. The Brothers joined me in the lobby at 1 p.m. to head out for a real Southern lunch at a local restaurant – and we got what we wanted. Many of us enjoyed fried chicken, fried catfish, cabbage, lima beans and yams – not to mention sweet tea.

After lunch, a few Brothers left to return home to make it back in time for classes on Monday (a sad time for us, as we’d been together all week). We wished them safe travels and promised to keep in touch.

The remaining group of us headed to the B.B. King Museum, about an hour south of Cleveland. We were supposed to meet up with a Brother who teaches in the Teach For America corps nearby, but the girl’s basketball team she coaches had a tournament.

Once at the museum, we were greeted by a very friendly Mrs. Bush. She gave us an intro to the museum and some of its historical aspects. Then, we proceeded with our interactive tour. Throughout the tour, we learned a lot about the challenges B.B. King faced throughout his life as well as how he grew into an icon. Two other Brothers left from the museum to travel home.

On the way back to the hotel, the final five Brothers and I debated on where to eat. The decision: a chain restaurant next to the hotel. It was now time to say farewell to two more Brothers, who those of us who are flying out tomorrow wouldn’t see at five in the morning, when we will depart the hotel – another sad moment for us.

Tomorrow, all of us will travel home with the memories of this experience. We all came here with no knowledge of how to build a pond, but by Friday, we had accomplished our goal. This made us all proud to be part of Phi Sigma Pi, using the opportunity to embody scholarship, leadership and fellowship as a group throughout the week. I had the chance to get to know some Brothers better than I usually would. Needless to say, I will never forget this experience!

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