1. 2 years ago 

    New Orleans, Louisiana

    Wolf 5 (my AmeriCorps NCCC team) is working with The Phoenix of New Orleans (PNOLA) to renovate homes severely battered by Katrina and which their homeowners cannot afford to rebuild and thus find it difficult to break the exile imposed by the storm. PNOLA utilizes volunteer labor to make that project affordable and thus encourage investment in and the development of the Lower Mid-City area and the surrounding communities.

  2. 2 years ago 

    Here are some pictures of myself, Sean Kesluk, in action for AmeriCorps NCCC and for The Samaritan Women, doing what few Jewish boys from Los Angeles have ever done or will ever do - hard manual labor. I’ve shoveled a lot of dirt, axed a lot of roots, hung a hell of a lot of sheetrock, and have had a lot of fun doing it actually. Although in fairness I’m not sure I’m going to be making any life decisions in those directions. 

  3. 2 years ago 

    Its been a long 8 weeks and we’re now in our final few days of our project with The Samaritan Women organization. Wolf 5, my AmeriCorps NCCC team, has done some tremendous work in the expansion of the urban farm on their property, and I think we can be proud of the way we are going to leave things. It is truly a beautiful space amongst the often less-than-beautiful western Baltimore scenery, and now that spring has sprung (my first real spring, I should mention, since in LA we really don’t get the full effect) the green is out in full force and we can not only see what has grown from our endeavors, but we can taste it; we had our first harvested salad the other night. It’s been a lot of digging and plowing and planting and transplanting and lifting and sifting and raking, but we’ve done some good work and I believe TSW and the community is better for it.

  4. 2 years ago 

    A few more pictures of my team and our work at TSW in Baltimore, MD over the past few weeks. Click the blue links to see slideshows.

    A representative from the UN came to demonstrate the use of Earth Boxes.

    The property, the ducks, the dog Daisy, and the lovely Jeanne.

    Fun with Chainsaws: Chris decided to have some fun cutting down trees, and things got hairy. Just another day working for TSW.

  5. 2 years ago 

    Prescribed burn with the US Fish & Wildlife Service in Spotsylvania, Virginia. I went down at 6:30 in the morning and joined up with the AmeriCorps NCCC fire composite team who were doing forestry work in Maryland, and we met outside of Fredericksburg, Virginia, linked up with the rest of the crew working on the burn that day. Our objective was to preserve a Civil War battlefield and its earthworks by burning about 70 acres of field. I got to burn with drip-torches, work an engine (truck with water tank and hose), and fought some unexpectedly intense flair ups on the fireline. It was an incredible experience to see everything we had learned put into action, and I’m looking forward to more involvement as a federal wildland firefighter. 

  6. 2 years ago 

    After my stint in North Carolina I joined up with my team in southwest Baltimore for two months working with TSW, The Samaritan Women. TSW is a Christian ministry which engages in three projects for the community: our lodging is to be used as a retreat and event center, we are expanding an urban garden/farm whose produce will go to soup kitchens, shelters, and those living in nutritional poverty, and lastly we are renovating a hundred-year-old mansion to be used in a few years time as a transitional home for women in recovery from addiction specializing in culinary arts. The property is incredible, the people we work for and with are incredible, and all-in-all its an incredible project.

    CLICK FOR PICS:The first Saturday of my time at the TSW site, March 24th, we hosted over a hundred volunteers for a day of community work. I supervised the “wood” team, in charge of organizing our wood piles for the day. After the volunteers cleared out we had some debrief time around the bonfire, which I look back on fondly I suppose.

    MORE PICS: Here are just some pics of a beautiful sunny day working out on the farm (and also digging out our sewage line) for The Samaritan Women. It was actually quite the slow day, and everything looks marvelous.

    We built a cross for TSW. Enough said. Take a look.

  7. 2 years ago 

    As one of the 36 Corps members selected to be trained as federally certified Type II Wildland Firefighters with the US Fish & Wildlife service, after basic training in Perry Point, MD I went down to Kinston, NC for a week of training at a North Carolina State Forestry facility before heading to Baltimore to meet up with my team on spike. The experience was a window into a world I could never before conceive, long days in class and out in the field learning about the dynamics of wildland firefighting and what it means to be a wildland firefighter. Here are some pictures to share the experience.

    North Carolina State Forestry Facility - The link has pictures of the facility at which we received our wildland firefighter training with the US Fish & Wildlife Service. 

  8. 2 years ago 

    First ever trip to Washington D.C. - the nation’s capitol. We managed to find a few free hours after the conclusion of our NCCC duties, and so we headed out into the city to the Mall. We played some ultimate frisbee and then set off on foot to see everything our nation’s history has to offer - or at least a sizable helping considering the limited time. It was absolutely incredible. Below are links to photos of me enjoying all that the capitol has to offer. 

    PICTURES: Wolf 5’s Ultimate Frisbee on the Capitol Mall

    THE CAPITOL BUILDING    ///  THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT

    THE WWII MEMORIAL        ///   THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL

    THE VIETNAM MEMORIAL ///   THE WHITE HOUSE


  9. 2 years ago 

    For our mini-spike, a short-duration project during training in preparation for our longer spike project, my team went to DC to work at the FIRST Regional Robotics Convention. I worked at the Spare Parts booth, met Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, learned a lot about the enthusiasm and capabilities of high school-level robotics, and enjoyed my first trip to DC. Here are some pics from the convention.

    WOLF 5 MINI - SPIKE: FIRST ROBOTICS CONVENTION DC

  10. 2 years ago 

    More pictures of Perry Point, taken from the Blackberry, some as the snow starts to clear. 

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So I, Sean Kesluk, left Los Angeles for a 6 month adventure abroad in Europe and South America. After a few weeks studying the Deutsch in Freiburg, Germany, it's two months up north in Hamburg working for the city's Jewish community center. After a brief foray into Sweden, I'll head South to Buenos Aires for some Spanish classes and volunteer work in a La Boca soup kitchen. After that it's back home to the States and national service with AmeriCorps NCCC. With a month of training at the VA medical campus in Perry Point, MD, it 's off to Baltimore for my first project, two months working for The Samaritan Women, a non-profit renovating a hundred-year-old mansion to use as a transitional home for women in recovery from heroin addiction and human trafficking, in addition to expanding a farm/urban garden to distribute produce to soup kitchens, shelters, and those in nutritional poverty. The second project will see us down in New Orleans, LA doing post-Katrina work with The Phoenix of New Orleans, a non-profit which renovates homes for Lower Mid-City homeowners who can't afford to do so.
 
 

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