Car Wash

by Rebecca

On Sat, Aug 2, Ship 7916 had its first fundraiser. We held a car wash in the parking lot by Mom's Apple Pie Bakery in Occoquan.

The first hour or so was slow, but it had rained earlier in the morning, and was still sprinkling. The traffic picked up as the day went on. Sometimes we had three cars being washed at the same time.

All the scouts that were there took turns washing the cars, and some of us held signs up on Rt 123 to direct people to the wash. Caitlín and I found that jumping up and down while waving the signs really got people's attention. We even had one motorcycle come to the wash.

We raised over $300 over the 4 1/2 hour wash. One couple gave us a good donation just for washing the tires.

Overall, I think it went really well, and all the scouts know how to wash cars. (Remember: 'Start from the top' as Mike kept telling us.) And we all had fun, even in the heat. Everyone got a little wet, but no one got soaked.

Painting Amanda Grace

Yesterday morning six Scouts and two adult leaders from of our Ship drove up to Maryland to paint the hull of our donated boat, the Amanda Grace. At our last meeting, several of us Scouts had been debating what color paint we should use, and joking that it should be purple or even pink. But since Daniel's father could black for free as a donation, that's what we went with.
As most of us had helped to paint der PeLiKan, it wasn't as interesting, but we were more experienced and even with fewer rollers and quite a bit of joking around and teasing each other, the job was finished a lot more quickly. (Although it could have also been that the Amanda Grace is only 27' in length as opposed to the 46' of der PeLiKan.)

der PeLiKan Work Day March 15, 2007

Although I had planned on going on the der PeLiKan workday on Saturday, I did not participate because I was run down from six months of burning my candle at both ends. But I did organize the trip by coordinating with the Friends of Sea Scouts, Maryland folks; promoting the opportunity; keeping a list of those who said they were going; composing and sending emails to them with list of things to bring/wear, directions, where to meet, etc.; creating and filing the Tour Permit; and sending out permission slips. The day of, I took a trip-related phone call at 0700, drove my Scout to meet at the parking lot at about 0745; held a brief muster; and happily sent off the crew and 2 qualified adult leaders--all of whom apparently did a great job. This was the first major function for our unit that I did not lead, and I was just the tiniest bit anxious about not being there. According to Joel David, the group "put on lots of bottom paint. We even got some on the boat besides the kids. I think your folks are well qualified to do the Amanda Grace...Everything went well and they appear to be good group of kids." Kewl. But I knew that last thing. I knew it.