Live from Jonesville, VA

My Alternative Spring Break class has arrived safely in Jonesville, VA at our Appalachian Service Project (ASP: www.asphome.org). We had a great drive down and are ready for a powerful week of volunteering here in the Appalachian Mountains. I will try to Blog from here as best I can about our trip, what we are learning and how we are helping the community.

We left South Bend with packed vans and started our trek... our fearless group of 11 Titans hit the road! We had some fun plans for the trip down and we wanted to try and enjoy some sites en route. Our first adventure was fitting all our stuff in two small mini-vans... luckily it all fit and we learned a lesson in space management (not originally part of the curriculum).
Our dinner was a typical southern stop at a Waffle House in Kentucky. Our waitress Rita was entertained by our Hoosier antics and the story of where we were going. "Well isn't that nice!" she said when she heard about our trip. Everyone enjoyed dinner and a break and we continued on...

After another stop for gas we got to visit Richmond, KY. Not the biggest tourism spot in the south, but it was on our route. It made for an interesting stop to see some historic buildings and we checked out the campus of Eastern Kentucky. We snapped a lot of photos and then got back on the road.
Just before leaving the state of Kentucky we made our final pit stop in Corbin, KY. For those not familiar with the city, it is home of the Colonel.... Colonel Sanders. We could not pass up the opportunity to eat Kentucky fried chicken, at the original Kentucky Fried Chicken.

A few hours later we drove through a tunnel, got dizzy on some winding mountain roads, and of course got a little lost... we arrived at our host site in Jonesville, VA. We got our orientation, made friends with fellow college participants from IUB, Minnesota, St. Louis University, Slippery Rock and a few other volunteers. The site leaders went and checked out our work sites, made plans for our work week, and then turned our vans into work trucks instead of family transports.

Tomorrow we will be working up in the mountains. We have been paired with a work team from IU Bloomington. The home we are working at was nearly destroyed in a fire and needs help to be rebuilt for a small young family. Hopefully we can help this family get settled back into their home and moving forward with their life soon enough.

Wish us luck... tomorrow we get to work.