Charleston

This past week, I went to AmeriCorps training and swearing in, in Charleston. We had two and a half days of training, which is part of the Mountain State Leaders program - a program that we continue to attend throughout the year. Once a month, we will meet in Fairmont, WV to conduct different modules of the leadership training. Having been to leadership trainings before, it wasn't a very exciting couple of days.

[Our team! L to R: Sarah, Donna, Jess, Meagan, and Anna]

But, we did get to go to Milton to do a corn maze! We divided up in teams and set out through the dark corn maze. We were really enthusiastic, but not very good at first. When we finally came up with a plan, which was to send scouts out to figure out if the paths just converged again or would actually lead us somewhere, we finally got somewhere. But our group was still pretty bad; it took us 10 minutes longer than the rival boys group...

The swearing in ceremony was also interesting. We sat with all of the other year-long AmeriCorps members and listened to a great speech by a former AmeriCorps, who as an adult finally found her calling by being an AmeriCorps member. We also got to meet Joe Manchin III, the govenor of West Virginia. He too gave a speech, but unfortunately it was not as eloquent or interesting as the one that proceeded him.

[Joe Manchin, III]

After the ceremony we had lunch and got to explore the new West Virginia History museum. I realized that I knew more about WV history than I thought! The museum was well laid-out, the right amount of interactive, had great exhibits and was overall very impressive.