1. 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.

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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