Excited to Go Back Again!

     For me, this trip has been seven years in the making. In 2012, my friend Nancy Herzig and I joined several other people as volunteers on the Reservation. The Simply Smiles volunteer presence was new at that point so we were essentially in at the ground level. We helped repair houses, we sheet - rocked the Community Center, we played games with the children and we hosted community dinners. Ever since leaving in August of 2012, I have wanted to return. I am so glad to have the opportunity to do so this year with my husband, two of our children and 7 others from Norfolk and other parts of CT.

     The focus of the volunteer program for Simply Smiles this summer is mainly focused on running a day camp for the children so as a result, much of our preparation for the trip has centered on that. We have planned seven separate activities for each day of the week and gathered materials for those activities. We have mailed four boxes of supplies and will check three bags of additional supplies!  We are looking forward to a week centered around an Olympics theme filled with slime making, games of tag, disc golf, a "javelin" throw, making oobleck, building rockets, making Rube Goldberg machines.....and on and on. But most importantly, we are overflowing with excitement to begin making new friendships with the people on the Reservation.  I can't wait to see what this week holds for us!

Unfortunately, our week has gotten off to a slow start. We were supposed to leave at 6:48 this morning (Saturday) from Bradley Airport but late last night we were notified that our flight was delayed, causing us to miss our next connection.  After more than an hour on the phone with American Airlines, we were re-booked for the same time tomorrow morning.  It took some work, but all 12 of us are now traveling together (for awhile it looked like we were going to have to be slit up).  I am sure this will make the beginning of the week on the Reservation a little hurried and we will miss out on some opportunities but- as the staff at Simply Smiles says "Flexibility is Fun!".  We will be flexible and make the best of all the opportunities we have!  For now, it's time to finish some last minute preparations that didn't get done yesterday!