Monday, October 29:
-The cast arrived at Easton High School and was welcomed by the mayor. All the students figured out who their host families were by saying the first part of a quote or song and then the host family who had the matching phrase would finish it (my student intern, Jonathan's idea). It was like a mini show and a fun way to start out the week.
Tuesday, October 30:
-This was an education/internal day. The Education Staff presented a workshop on wealth distribution in the world and the World Bank in Washington DC. This was a prelude to the our day on Friday. In the afternoon, we all did rehearsal for the Macy's Day Thanksgiving Parade. Yup, I am going to be appearing in the parade with the cast! It's going to be craziness. After rehearsal, we dropped off the cast at 5 different locations around town to promote the show. They visited 3 grocery store shopping centers, downtown Easton and a senior citizen home. It was a rather successful promotion time, which felt good because I really dislike making the cast promote their own show. They even started their own contest to see which group could get the most confirmations for coming to our show. It was a good day.
Wednesday, October 31:
-The fist Community Impact day. The cast worked at 4 different sites around Talbot and Dorchester County for Habitat for Humanity. The students worked mainly on painting, spackling and interior wall design. After their day of work, we had a Halloween party!
We held it in the Parish Hall of a church and we decorated it to the nines. There was a costume party, food, lots of dancing and limbo. It was fun for the cast to just let loose and have fun and not have to worry about being in the "fishbowl." This is a term that Up With People uses for the students to understand that they must be aware of their actions and the image they are portraying because who knows who may be judging the organization with how you are representing yourself. I mean, our cast manager dressed in drag!
Thursday, November 1
-The cast was split into three groups for their Community Impact projects on this day. A group went to Pickering Creek Audubon Center, a 400-acre nature preserve. They worked on trail maintenance, painting and construction work on a historic house.
Some of the cast worked with Special Olympics Maryland, where they helped introduce the game of bocce ball to students from Easton Middle School and High School and to clients from a center for adults with disabilities. Our students did things like show them how to play, cheer them on, keep score and guide them safely from location to location. Lastly, a small group of students spent the day at a rehabilitation center for adults dealing with mental illnesses and substance abuse. In the morning, there are about 15 clients that come in and do group work and our students sat in with them. During that time, they visited, sang for each other and shared stories with each other. In the afternoon they played games and worked with the staff. The feedback that the students gave about this community service project was very powerful. They felt that they were truly making an impact by visiting with these clients; they felt very inspired by the patience of the staff and the quality of the facility. Some of the students had personal connections to some of the maladies that affected these clients, so that also made this visit very meaningful.
Friday, November 2
-Regional Learning Day in Washington DC. This was a rather stressful day for me because there were some logistical things that I didn't anticipate. It all worked out in the end like it always does, but man was it stressful until then! I won't go into those details but I thought I should mention it anyway. We started out the day with a visit to the IFC, a private sector of the World Bank, where we had several speakers that spoke on their roles.
This included Lars Thunell (CEO of the World Bank), Corrie Shanahan (Chief of Marketing), Rachel Kyte (Director of Environment and Social Development Department), Janet Li (works with Grassroots Businesses). All our presenters work in the IFC in different positions, all with the purpose of fulfilling IFC’s mission. The mission is to reduce poverty in developing countries by providing necessary tools to communities and individuals, like a water supply, more accessible energy-saving products, etc. My student intern has a connection to the CEO and we were able to make a connection so that we could get these presentations. In the afternoon, the cast went through the Holocaust Museum. I wish I would have had less on my mind so that I could fully take in the powerful displays. The whole exhibit was very explicit, giving a very moving representation of the tragedy. I definitely want to go back to see it again to more fully grasp the magnitude of this part of history. Afterwards, we had dinner at a Law Firm that some alumni and I coordinated. This was a great chance for us to interact with some alumni and for our cast manager to express the urge for alumni to become more involved to possibly bring a future cast to the DC area as part of an official tour stop. The last part of the day brought us to all the war memorials where the cast was given time to look at the WWII, WWI, Korean and Vietnam memorials. It was a laaaaaaaaate night when we finally returned to Easton.Saturday, November 3
-Show day! The cast did set-ups, workshops and rehearsal while I ran around and made sure meals were in, programs were ready to go, change was ready for at-door ticket sales, etc. We weren't really sure how many people would show up at the show. In the end, about 800 people came to the show, about 35 alumni came to our after-show alumni reception and we gave 7 admission's interviews for potential students.
And that was the end of the week (with the exception of the free day with host families the next day). It was a long week and in the end it all worked out just fine. Another city down!
