Alright, February was good, but as Jay-Z says, "It's on to the next one."
For our team, things continue to come together for our LTP. We are buying supplies for a housing program so people have such luxuries (sarcasm) as garbage cans, eating and cooking utensils, linen, shower curtains, hygiene products, etc.
The month of March was an amazing month of fifth days. The first Saturday was 'Chicago Takes Off'. CTO is a huge fundraiser for TPAN. It's a yearly burlesque show that is performed and organized through hundreds of volunteers. Team Chicago got there about 8 hours early to help set up the stage, decorations, and bring general cheer to everyone.
(The team taking a quick break from setting up...What's Kevin looking at? Probably a performer...)
After set up, we were lucky enough to score some free tickets to the show. The show's theme was 'TV Land'. Everything was based on old TV show favorites like 'I Love Lucy' and 'Gilligan's Island'. Simply put, it was mind blowing. Every member agreed that it was up there with some of the best fifth days. I personally fell in love with a beautiful girl in one of the dance troupes (is troupe the right word?), but didn't have the courage to talk to her after the show...I'm a wuss. The event raised about $170,000 for TPAN. So, our small hand in setting up reaped some huge rewards for infected and at risk communities around Chicago, allowing many TPAN programs to continue.
All the performers taking their bow at the end of the show, note the beautiful decorations.
The next Friday, the 12th, we actually took a team bonding fifth day. We drove out of the city to my parent's home, where I grew up, in the western suburbs. There, my mom was waiting with a feast of Indian food. We all just hung out, ate some great food and had a good time. We also watched some basketball together. Unfortunately, Davina's Wisconsin Badgers lost (sorry Day Day). Afterwords, we split up and solicited some businesses to raise funds for our LTP. A very relaxing fifth day.
We didn't take any pictures this fifth day, but here's a picture of my mom and I.
She cooks like a boss. And dresses like one too.
The third fifth day of the month was spent at the American Indian Health Services of Chicago (AIHSC) health fair. This was for National Native American HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. While at the fair, our team conducted testing and counseling. We had the opportunity network with an entirely new population that we can continue to help for the remainder of the service year. Props to Kevin on this, he organized everything and it went great. Hopefully we'll see more of this great organization in the near future, they really need us and we loved spending time with all of the staff and clients. No pictures from this event...sorry Maggie!
The last fifth day of March was spent at TPAN doing some odds and ends painting and making over 1,000 safe sex kits. The weather was pretty miserable that day, so we are saving all of the kits for a huge outreach fifth day in perhaps May. With over 1,000 kits already, excluding the thousands from other agencies, the day of outreach will prove a massive push for testing and awareness. Awesome.
Got safe sex?
Wow...as I read over this post I realize how rapid fire I wrote. I apologize, but it does pretty much sum up March for us. We had some great fifth days and it flew by. I hope all our teams are doing great and Team Chicago cannot wait for super fifth day with Team Indy and Team Detroit!
Also, Chicago started a twitter account: nafteamchi. Follow us!
Enjoy the beautiful weather and be well.
Best,
Team Chicago.
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