School's Out For "Summer" McCurdy Day 7

The last day of school is one of the best days for a kid (besides Christmas)! There's the feeling of accomplishment at finishing a grade and learning what was asked of you. Not to mention looking forward to the summer and hanging out with the new friends you made. There's also a little bit of a bittersweet moment when you leave behind the teachers you liked (not necessarily and ones you didn't) and knowing that everything will change.

Today was our last day at McCurdy. At our wrap-up meeting there were a lot of happy and exhausted faces reporting on the projects they completed this week.

The Rockstar Paparazzi finished their inventory project handing over almost 1000 photos and an extensive spreadsheet (including the second floor pool as a joke to see if anyone will catch it). They were overjoyed to say the least. Karen, Karen and Tracy aren’t going to miss the dark basements anytime soon! (As an aside, Karen C. and Tracy ended early and cleaned the dorm area for everyone much to our delight!)

In the same fashion, Butch declared he didn’t want to see another lawn mower for a year! The yard crew mix and mingled projects all over campus, wilted a bit in the sun and heat, and had a lot of laughs (probably to help them from keeling over)! Dan, Dale, Andy and Butch mowed lawns all over McCurdy along with the baseball field. Along with them, Judy, Kris, Nancy, Amy, Meg and Karen W. (who returned even after the “devil bush” incident) finished cleaning around one of the resident houses on campus and also around the dorm. By the end of the day everyone collapsed in the shade but perked up when the wonderful Tracy presented them with Bomber Popsicles. Nothing cheers you up and cools you down like a Popsicle! There is not a dumpster on campus that is not full of yard waste right now and everyone commented that they don’t even want to look at their own landscaping at home!

Mr. IT happily reported his successes today after a trying week. He completely downloaded and finished ten desktop computers and finished a spreadsheet issue for a staff member. He did work overtime tonight to finish but he didn’t go for the suggestion of staying a few more weeks to help out. :)

Also working overtime was Sheila who worked right up until dinner time! All the mailings are done, Vicky’s office is organized and logical and Vicky tried her hardest to get Sheila to stay too. It sounds like we’ll be counting noses tomorrow to make sure everyone actually boards the plane for home!

For the first time all week, Lucy and Ethel didn’t make us pee our pants laughing about one of their misadventures in the kitchen. There wasn’t a Raisin Bran incident, cutting mishap or Blue Tip disappearance! It was truly a bittersweet day for them as they have become such good friends with Lucy, Sherry and Abel. Lori and Brenda surprised all of us with a special sopapilla recipe from Sherry! Showing good spirits and her wacky sense of humor, Vicky awarded Lori with the Purple Heart for this week for being injured in the line of duty!

Tired Tom successfully brought this loud, rambunctious, hysterical, and always fun group through all the tasks at hand. Along with all the duties he does with Vicky and McCurdy, he also managed to herd 19 cats in five vans. He’s a miracle worker folks and you can’t have him, he’s all ours!

Well audience, it has finally arrived, the moment of truth! Did Carla and Claudia pull off a miracle of their own and hit their goal of 20,000 labels or will they also have to stay behind to finish their work? Drumroll please…(there’s an app for that so feel free to use it)…In one week, they clipped, sorted, counted, banded and tallied…(insert annoying commercial break here)…22,676! You read that correct, they surpassed their goal by over 2,000! It might not seem like it amounts to much but to put it in perspective, they just mailed in 383,050 labels that bought them six desktop computers, software and some playground equipment. So before you toss your labels and box tops, send them to McCurdy! Speaking of box tops, Miss Box Top Barb alone clipped $120 worth for a two-day total of $505.60! That’s more than some people win in Jeopardy!

As a celebration on the last night we had pizza (and whatever random food and pop people didn’t want to take on the plane). Vicky and Kaylyn joined us for the make shift party. Kaylyn was kind of an honorary member this week. She is staying in the dorms while she student teaches first grade with Bernice (who as you recall, introduced us to Frito Pie on Wednesday). It is a small world because she is a senior at Otterbein and we all had fun talking about Ohio and would we ever stop drinking water in New Mexico? She said when she came back to Ohio, she’d make sure to stop by RUMC. :) Anyway, back to the evening.

After we had loads of carbs and laughs, some of us headed to the gym to watch the McCurdy lady varsity volleyball team play their first home game. Coincidentally, Vicky’s daughter plays on the team. We had a blast and apparently they really wanted Claudia to play too because the volleyball came at her at least seven times! They won the game and we all learned more about volleyball (like it actually goes to 25 points not 21) and we decided we should’ve had little cheers after we finished tasks this week! Vicky, her daughter and two friends, stopped by afterward to say hi and thank us for coming. It was really fun (and really hot in the gym)!

As always, we ended with devotions and tonight’s was on Matt. 25:31-46 – “for what you have done to the least of these, you have done to me.” As we closed with prayer, we all thanked God for the various reasons He brought us here and the joy we received. There was a finality about it. We fly out tomorrow with luggage full of souvenirs (some more than others), new friends, loads of stories and pictures and an imprint of McCurdy on our hearts. We rejoiced in our accomplishments and said goodbye to our New Mexican teachers and friends. We won’t be squealing out of the parking lot like the Seniors do on their last day, but instead will be boarding our plane home for our “summer vacation” until we return again next year.