Oh the adventure we have been on and it is only day 1. Our service focus this week in Asheville, NC is health and wellness. We woke up this morning and the temperature was 32 degrees and we were ready to start our day volunteering (outside… in the cold). We volunteered with an organization called GreenWorks and we picked up 28 bags of trash and found 7 tires on a road clean-up. Even though we collected all of this trash and made the road look spectacular, this road had been cleaned twice the previous week and the other groups also collected an abundance of trash. Please don’t litter, it is a much larger problem than you believe it is. During our trash collection process we found things such as water bottles, fast food bags, needles, a Nokia phone (that was destroyed… it can happen), a lock-box with a social security card and ID, and 1 roller skate. Also during our time serving we got to witness a tractor trailer being pulled out of a ditch by the National Guard. It was funny because the truck made the turn to tight and there was a sign that said “Sharp Right” so I decided to take a photograph. This was the wrong choice, the National Guard man came running towards me and asked me why I was photographing this incident. It was quite the ordeal. After our time volunteering with GreenWorks we decided to take a hike up in Blue Ridge Parkway, a very popular hiking site in Asheville. The drive to the hiking spot was about an hour drive and it was straight up a mountain. On the way we almost ran into a goat that had escaped its fence. The drive up the mountain was beautiful because there was fresh snow on the ground and there was so much scenery to look at. For anyone who gets car sick or has motion sickness, this would not have been the drive for you. Once we get to the top of the mountain and are only a few minutes from our destination we see a lovely sign that says “Road Closed.” Even though we could not continue down the road we did get to see a cute little spotted creature that might have been a skunk. We had to drive all the way back down the mountain and decided to stop at a local coffee shop. The coffee shop was family ran and the lady who owned the shop was incredible and we had a long conversation with her about hard and perseverance. She was very inspiring and it was a nice life talk. After this we came back to the church we are staying at and there was an albino squirrel in the yard. A few people cooked spaghetti for dinner and we reflected on our service for the day. We discussed how the items we found on the road impacted the health and wellness of the Asheville community. We decided that there could be a correlation between the amount of alcohol bottles, cigarettes, and fast food that we found and how these are all items that relate to an unhealthy lifestyle. All in all today was greatly rewarding and I am excited for the rest of our service!
-Emily Wheeler