A Team Lift and a Photo Shoot

Today is the fourth and final day of the Babson Consignment assignment of the SummerCorps. Tinu, Shu, Martika, Tazmun (the newest addition to the group) and I were up and ready to go early this morning to finish up this great project.

The first thing on our to do list was to move some more TVs, refrigerators and other items from across campus to the location of the project. Just picture 5 well intentioned young adults trying to heave a 50" television up two flights of stairs and down a hallway. Now, I am not talking about one of those thin flat screen TVs, these one's are the old school TVs with the iceberg attached to the screen. In other words these things weren't light. Somehow we all manged to pitch in and get them all safely to the car and then across campus.

Of course the new items we had moved need to be cleaned first and the boys really stepped up to help out with the Windex.

The Next step on our To Do list was to take a photo of each item so that they could be publicized and sold online. Everyone took their artful turn at photography. In the end the project turned out really well and I am sure that many of these items will be sold quickly. All of the donations will be up for sale in the Reynolds Campus Center during the fall semester. If you are in the market for a fridge, TV or Ab Lounge be sure to be on the look out for e-mails about pre-sales.

Our first SummerCorps assignment as now come to an end, and what a project it was. At first the room looked intimidating but in the end we cleaned, cleared and organized our hearts out. Thanks to the team for being great sports who tackled mold, mildew and behemoth televisions like no one I have ever seen.

Next week: Camp Sunshine, a whole week in Maine starting Sunday, stay tuned!

Tagging and Excel

Day Three on the Babson Consignment Project proved to be more thought provoking than previous days. Sorry for not blogging about it yesterday, living life is always more important that blogging about it....am I right! Anyways, Tinu, Shu and I took on the task of documenting all 160 items donated to the Babson Consignment store. We made an excel spreadsheet and broke the items into groups, TVs, mini fridges, Furniture etc... after going through the entire room and documenting all of the items, we realized that we also needed to give them a description....so we went back through one more time. Oh the life of SummerCorps. In the end we learned a few lessons about doing monotonous work as a team, here are the lessons:

• One person has to speak at a time
• Speak loudly and clearly
• Always work from the top left to the bottom right (ALWAYS)
• Never hurts to go over the work you did again
• Ten minute breaks every hour are a must

We worked hard yesterday, even though the work wasn't that exciting we winded down with some palm reading by Shu and jammed out to some sweet salsa music. Looks like this project is coming along quite nicely.

Next Up: TV moving and Picture Taking (Its a good one!)

Mold, Dust and Team Building

Day Two of the SummerCorps is over and Tinu, Shu , Martika (new to the group) and I have now endured a healthy dose of mold accompanied with a healthy dose of windex. Yes, today was the day we cleaned all of the donated items I was talking about yesterday.

Our ammunition: 2 bottles of windex and 6 rolls of paper towels
Our Target: The lamps, mini fridges, TVs, cups, knife sets, furniture and all the other donations that the students of Babson College gave to the first ever Babson Consignment project.

Did it smell? Yes. Was it sticky? Yes. Did we build some muscle scrubbing? Absolutly. Luckily this team is comprised of some pretty awesome people that did not complain once and were scrubbing and scraping with smiles. Nothing brings a group of strangers closer than the smell of rotten milk and dingy basement.

In all seriousness, the day was a great way to burn some calories and get to know most of the the other members of the SummerCorps (3 more members will be arriving in a few weeks). I can tell that if the group isn't complaining about scrubbing and scraping they are certainly going to be all in on our future assignments.

Tomorrow we are looking forward to putting down our latex gloves and busting out the excel spreasheets to documents all these treasures.

Until Next Time: Scrape, Scrape, Scrape, Wash, Wash, Wash

SummerCorps Begins

Mission #1: Babson Consignment

SummerCorps at Babson College has officially started.  My cohorts (Shu and Tinu) and I began our first assignment, sorting through the donations for the first ever Babson Consignment Shop.  This idea all began when a few students came up with it as part of the "Be The Change" campaign at Babson during the spring semester (more details to be told in the future).  During the frenzy of finals and packing, Babson students have a tendency to leave things behind that can be reused, so in order to stick to the motto of "Reuse, Refuse, Recycle" the Babson Consignment Store will take all of these left behind items and resell them in the fall to students who could use them and save a few bucks.  

After a quick orientation chat with Josh, our supervisor and hero, we were brought to the basement of Park Manor Central (usually a freshman dormitory building). Behind a very large and very heavy door was the largest pile of "stuff" that I had ever seen (Picture HGTVs Clean House). 

Our task: Move, sort, clean and tag every item of "stuff" in the room

At first the job seemed overwhelming, even impossible! But It's Possible at Babson and we pulled up our sleeves and got to work.  After an hour we broke for lunch, but then we were right back in the thick of things.

At the end of the day I am happy to say that we managed to sort through everything.  Here is a list of some awesome and disgusting donations we found:

• Brand New 15 piece knife set
• Over a dozen working televisions
• at least 10 refrigerators
• Countless lamps
• a book binding machine
• a universal plug set
• old school pencil sharpener
• two three legged tables
• A 6 ft gold lamp (Who brought this all the way to school and then left it behind!)
• An entire collection of frames, photos of friends included
• A few TONS worth of clothing (to be donated to the salvation army)
• A pot of soaked wood chips
• A half full and moldy bottle of salad dressing
• And countless other items that were dirty yet spectacular

The day was a great first day.  So far my cohorts are awesome at lifting things that are too heavy for me and not too shabby at the organizing.   Tomorrow we will be cleaning all of the items, I can't wait!

Until Next Time Don't Forget: Reuse, Refuse, Recycle