"Sanity May Be Madness But the Maddest of All is to See Life As It Is and Not As It Should Be." ~Don Quixote

Spring Break, Part 2
We started off OUR Spring Break with a Car Show!  Monday brought the beginning of 3 days straight of crashing college campuses, Tuesday I spent the day un-decorating classrooms so that night and Wednesday volunteers could paint them, and Thursday I helped out with the last Parent Orientation of the school year.  This Spring Break, I kinda felt like I was along for the ride, but I was just fine with that.  But having reviewed everything we've done this week, I have to ask:  What's Spring Break?

Car Show
Gold's Barber Shop organized their 1st Annual Car Show and we were the charity of choice!  We got to have a table out among the other booths, so people knew what they were supporting with a portion of their entry fee.  Emily, Jeff, and I split the time our table was up, and a few board members came out to help us, as well as some awesome volunteers lending their face painting abilities to the occasion.  We had a whole stack of Pomona Hope keychains ready to give out, as well as pens, popcorn, flyers, and, of course, face painting.  Several people came to our table to find out what we were all about and ended up just giving us cash right there!  It was pretty cool, having only heard of us that one time.

This lovely Board Member came to hang out with me, then spent most of the time she was there making popcorn while I painted faces.

I got there at noon to relieve Emily and Jeff, but our face painter at the time also had to catch a ride home with Jeff, while the next one wasn't scheduled to come for another hour.  And wouldn't you know it, just as he was walking away, a little girl walked up wanting her face painted.  I was standing at the table assessing the situation, and asked her if she wanted one of the two things I felt comfortable enough in my abilities to paint halfway decently: "Do you want a butterfly?"  "Sure!"

Then her family followed, and a whole bunch of kids, some of whom seemed to know each other.  The requests got increasingly more difficult as time went on, which made me work even slower, which made the line longer.  By the time my relief arrived, I had accumulated a line so long that it didn't ever actually disappear until we were packing up to leave hours later.  (File this under Reasons Why Liz Cannot Be a Face Painter)  For a good hour or so after my relief came, we had 2 people painting faces and the line still did not die down!  And they did a WAY better job (and faster) than I did.

Miss Barb stopped by to take pictures of cars, then posted these on Facebook.  :-)

Proof I'm a real person!

She wanted to be a skeleton, but I didn't want to mess up her lipstick.  And then she wanted a flower on each cheek.

My savior!  She's wonderful!

See?!  TWO!  I wasn't kidding!  They both were so amazing I bet the kids that came to me regret coming so early.

Campus Crash
Jeff has been planning Campus Crash for MONTHS.  It's a great opportunity for our high school students to see what different colleges look like.  These kids gave up three days of their Spring Break to hang out with us and see the colleges.  At the end of the day on Wednesday, Jeff came into our office and told me how genuine our only male student sounded as he thanked Jeff for taking him along this week.

The event lasted 3 days, but I only went to Monday: Azusa Pacific University (APU) and the Claremont Colleges (5C's).  It was SUPER fun (our kids are awesome and the tour guides were great), but at the end of the day I was exhausted.  I managed to make it through dinner and a short movie before passing out on the couch while Kevin and his friends played Magic: The Gathering for 4 hours.  I have no idea how Jeff and the kids made it another 2 days!

So please enjoy the pictures I remembered to take on our journey with 6 high school students across 7 campuses in 7 hours.

The games you play in Christian schools... Sadly, THIS is what reminded me to take pictures.

Showing us around APU's Theological Department.

Professor/Pastor/ Reverend Paul Boles, thinking about what else to tell us in that hallway.

COFFEE MAKER!  Wait... no... (Science Building, West Campus)

He made his own path a lot, which often caused hilarity to ensue.

English Department Courtyard

The bridge outside the Prayer Chapel.

All 3 of Jeff's former students who attend APU found him while we were there! (This is two of them.)

Review of what was learned at APU.  They will now never forget "The Shire"

Brianne's friend took us to visit Cafe con Leche at Scripps, where Latina/Chicana students could find resources specific to their needs.

Despite it being an all female school, he learned to look for similar resources wherever he went.

We got a really neat, in-depth look at Scripps.

They have lots of courtyards.

And we found one of our other volunteers waiting for class to start (he goes to Mudd!)

The mural in the background remains unfinished because the artist passed away before it was completed.

Inside the theater Brianne works for.

The outside was designed by a native of Pomona.

New tour guide for CMC: volunteer and President of the CMC Student Body!

He liked the reflecting pool.

View  (of the Library) from the top

We're on a roof!

View from our Board Member's office.

Not bad!

There's that reflecting pool again.

Almost the whole group...

He tried to jump over and got stuck.  This is him desperately trying to get down before I can take the picture.

Walls made of White Board?

He's creating a masterpiece... right?

Right?!

Well, in his defense, he did remember the hyphen.

<3

Review of the 5C's- Students earned prizes for answering questions accurately.  They were even taking notes!

Repainted Rooms!
This Tuesday and Wednesday we had groups of people from Baseline Community Church come to help out with adding a fresh coat of paint to some of our classrooms.  The need was desperate, and they delivered.:-)

To prepare for them, I spent most of Tuesday pulling posters off of walls in the rooms and moving furniture around to make it easier for the incoming help.  Emily stayed late with the group who came Tuesday, and I stayed with the Wednesday group.  Yay Teamwork!

Homework Room at the beginning of Wednesday

How the back hallway looked overnight.

Study Hall

More hallway

Painting the Jr High Rm.

This was the big task on Wednesday

Making it look easy.

Wednesday's group!  They finished up the amazing work of Tuesday's group.

Parent Orientation
Thursday marked the final Parent Orientation to add new students to our program for the school year.  We tend to get a bunch of parents calling asking to enroll their students around report card time.  Not much space for new students at the moment, but if they're on the wait list, they can get into the Summer Program!

Luckily, for me, one volunteer forgot we weren't in session, so she helped out with testing the students while I continued to work on other things.  Happy accidents are still happy.

Computer Giveaway!
Since we have new computers at Pomona Hope, we decided to give away the computers that are still somewhat functional to our families.  We gave them a flyer at the end of last week saying to come in this Thursday between 5:30 and 6:30, first come, first served.  As families were leaving the Parent Orientation just before 5 pm, we already had a line of 4 families waiting to come in!

As the first family came out of a different door, one of the waiting boys saw them coming out and squealed and danced in delight. He was clearly excited to have any kind of computer.

Coming Soon...
This is not a Pomona Hope sponsored or affiliated event, but I do think that it is something worth attending if you have the time and care about peace and safety in Pomona.

Consider joining the rally for Peace!

 In Other News...
I got my first haircut in 2 years and 3 months!  Not even a trim, guys. I was going to ask if I could come in on Friday, but she could only do Wednesday morning... which turned out to be perfect since I was set to work noon to 8 pm for painting purposes!

Why do I let my hair get so long?!

And then I worked until 8.

I think I'll take tomorrow off.