1. 1 year 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.

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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