Hello! Long time, no chat, and a lot has changed since we last touched base.
So, let me update you!
Welcome back to my little corner of the world!
If you know me even a little bit, you know that one of my favorite song(s) both in the ASP world and outside of it is Wagon Wheel. I haven’t told a lot of people the story that comes with this song but right now, at the end of my summer, looking back on it all, I feel like it’ll make this whole summer even more full circle for me, and in turn, remind whoever is reading this on the other side of the screen, that while my life has worked out in crazy beautiful ways, perhaps there’s will too.
Before that little story, let me give you some background on what the summer world looks like at ASP. After transitioning from a social work intern into a full-blown summer staffer, I think I have a much more complete picture of the solar system that is ASP and how many different sectors it covers as nonprofit: construction, social work, and ministry. I was located in Johnson City, Washington County, more specifically, one of our twenty counties that we serve in the summer, with four other amazing humans that served as my teammates/roommates/friends/coworkers for the summer, as we hosted different groups of volunteers every week and took on seventeen homes and multiple construction projects over the course of six weeks. To say my life changed, that I changed, is an understatement. Everyone told me before I left that it would happen, that I would be swept up in the family that is ASP and my whole heart would change in the span of a summer, and I didn’t doubt them, but I didn’t realize just how lucky I would get in it all.
When I was a little kid, I had the unbreakable desire to sing at my local talent show, and a week before I was set to perform at the age of eight, we went camping with our family friends. One night around the fire and the sticky smores and the stars above, they were playing guitar and singing bluegrass songs that I hadn’t heard before (growing up in the Midwest was instead full of music by John Mellencamp and 3 Doors Down). I was the last kid awake, the perks of being the eldest of the bunch, and they had asked if I wanted to practice performing. The only song we all knew was Wagon Wheel.
I sang Wagon Wheel around that campfire at the ripe age of eight years old, singing lyrics about Johnson City and North Carolina, almost a decade before I would end up living in both places, somewhat simultaneously. My mom deemed me bold and brave that day, a little girl, leading a group in a song about freedom and love and being fearless. A little girl who in turn would one day move to places that were waiting for her too.
Everyone kept telling me that I was made for this and I saw it everywhere – in the homeowners we helped, in the volunteers that talked to me for hours at a time that remind me of myself, in the team I had around me who took turns pulling me in for handshakes and hugs and helping me laugh when I felt like I would cry, in the ways in which everything in Johnson City felt aligned, like in some serendipitous way, it was waiting for me.
Because I do firmly believe in this idea that tables are set for us in places we don’t even know exist yet. How else would you explain that I discovered my passion for doing disaster recovery on a small island in the Pacific, an island I was never really supposed to be on if graduation plans hadn’t fallen through a week before I graduated undergrad. How else would you explain the significance to relocate to a place in North Carolina for graduate school, where my advisor gave me a long list of practicum placements, and right before I left the office – she stopped me and said, actually, there’s one more, and it was ASP.
Happy accidents, serendipity, and humans. My big three. This company has proven that to me repeatedly, and within that, is something that I use to hear my parents say often.
It takes a village.
Never in my life have I agreed with this statement more. We have seen community come together more often this summer, especially in the first three weeks for my staff, that reminds me that you can’t go at it alone. It takes grit, optimism, and a heck of a lot of understanding that to build the temple – you must be the temple.
Humans were never made to be an island – and in that, it takes a village. To my incredible staff who became some of my favorite people in a matter of seconds and who never shied away from taking care of me in so many big and small ways, to the amazing volunteers, to the incredible community we have been serving, and to the homeowners who allowed us into their homes and in turn impacted us with their stories and lives, and to ASP as a whole, all of which, has indefinitely changed my life.
So, get out there, and be the temple. This world could use a little more of it.
See you soon.
Over n out,
Chloe B.
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Chloe B.
Social Work Intern & Summer Staff Alum
