Jersey Service Trip

Friday morning, I accompanied fellow RA's from my school (Lasell College) down to New Jersey for the first service trip sponsored by Residential Life. The drive took us about 8 hours with a lot of traffic heading into New Jersey. However, it was such a beautiful drive over the George Washington Bridge!

Sunset over the George Washington Bridge, NY

Credit: Will Dempsey, Lasell College

We arrived late at night to Brigantine, New Jersey where we stayed at a local community center. We settled into our cots which where surprisingly very comfy!
The next day we woke up early to begin out journey to Seaside Heights for our first day of service. We arrived at a small state-owned building right along the boardwalk.

 I was completely shocked when we arrived at Memory Lane Concessions, run by Bob Berger.

The building was completely filled with sand about two feet high. Hurricane Sandy basically picked up the shore's dunes and dumped them into this small building. There was little to no space where sand didn't completely cover the floor of the building.

Our task of the day was to work alongside Americorps as well as numerous other members from different conservations corps.


Along with shoveling out the sand, we were also in charge of properly disposing of all the debris in the stand. The storm tore down a serving bar in the front of the snack shop (bottom left). It also over turned and threw around numerous deep fryers and refrigerators. This presented a major problem in clearing out the sand from the shop. Broken refrigerators left thousands of pieces of glass among the huge piles of sand. Because of this, hundreds of pounds of sand had to be driven to another location where it was dumped in a huge pile. Workers would then have to sift through all the sand to get out the sand particles so the sand could be safely returned to the dunes. Despite the destruction of the floor of the shop, it is amazing to see how clean and perfect the snack shop's sign as well as the American flag still hangs.

Hard at work shoveling. Credit: Will Dempsey, Lasell College

Fellow RA's shoveling a hallway.

It was not only amazing to see the progress we made by the end of the day, but it was amazing to see the dedication of everyone on the work site. As soon as we showed up, my entire group got right to work. I rarely saw a fellow RA taking an extended break. We were all determined to help out Joe Berger and restore his snack shop. I was also inspired by the work the members of AmeriCorps and the several state Conservation corps present. They all work long, labor filled hours, every day for years at a time. Not once did they complain or get upset if we ever made a mistake. They helped us out, joked around with us, and collaborated in making it a very successful day.

The amount of sand in the building was daunting. At the beginning of the day I thought it would take weeks to clear out the building. However, at the end of the day I realized it would only take consistent work throughout the day. When we left the site at 3 PM, one could see a large amount of the sand had been removed!

The hallway (pictured to the left) is just a small portion of the building we were able to clear out on our first day of service. Although it was a small space, it felt great helping Joe Berger get that much closer towards re-opening his shop.
After we left, another shift of volunteers arrived to tackle shoveling out the building.

Next, we decided to go on a drive and do some sight seeing. We ended up at the very historic, MTV Jersey Shore house!

The day's crew with the owner of Memory Lane Concessions. 

Debris along the road & boardwalk.

As we drove down the boardwalk to the Jersey Shore house, the destruction Hurricane Sandy left is still very prevalent. Buildings, restaurants, and stores are all boarded up, claiming to "Re-open in May." Piles of cardboard, trash, wood, and other debris line the side-walk of the streets.

PARTYS HERE!!

 It was honestly kind of cool to see the Jersey Shore house in real life... even if it didn't look as nice as it did on TV. It still had the infamous Italian flag-painted garage door. As we posed for many pictures in front of the house, many other people stopped to take pictures of the house as well. One lady was taking pictures to send her daughter. She even sent her a picture of us! Too funny.
As we drove back to Brigantine, we all reflected on our days work and longed to lay, for eternity, in our cots.

The entire group Lasell College's Residential Life sponsored to participate on the trip. Credit: Will Dempsey, Lasell College

Decked out in protective gear!

The next day we got to sleep in! However, our assignment for the day fell through so we headed into Atlantic City to work on removing debris from a lady's house. We suited up in masks, hard hats, and protective suits. When we first entered the basement, we couldn't believe the destruction. Nearly every surface was covered in mold and a muddy water film. Unfortunately, the site was too dangerous for us to work on, being a health hazard, and we had to find another site to work on. So we headed back to the Jersey Shore to continue shoveling sand!

Our group was split in two when we arrived at the site. Half of us continued to shovel out sand, while the second half combed the beach picking up debris. Despite being months after the hurricane, there was still a lot of debris that littered the shore. I was surprised to find a lot of coal all along the sand. We also found a stuffed animal, two roses, 3, different and single shoes, as well as random pieces of unidentifiable plastic and metal.

After several hours walking along the beach, we ended the day. Walking up to the snack shop and seeing the final amount of progress my group made on the building was so inspiring. In two days, everyone who worked on the shop was able to fully shovel out the two front rooms, and the hall ways leading into the back rooms. I figured that task alone would take more than a few days.

Second room on the first day of shoveling. Credit: Will Dempsey

Second room all cleared out!!

We finished the weekend the next day volunteering at a local soup kitchen. While we were only there for a few hours it was interesting to see, first hand, the homeless community of Atlantic City. As a regular volunteer at a soup kitchen in Boston called the Friday Night Supper, it is nice to know that there are people working all over the country to help out those in need.

This was my first, of MANY, service trips. I could not have been with a better group. I am officially infected with the service bug. I can not wait to do more. Its service, trips, and experiences like these that further affirm my recent major change. I can't wait to be an active member of the "real world" and do amazing work like the members of AmeriCorps and Community Collaborations International do every day in New Jersey.

In this blog post I included pictures taken by a fellow student at Lasell College, Will Dempsey. To see more of his beautiful photos of our trip visit his flickr page.