Blue Berry Baby -- Gibson Helps at AmeriCorps Unity Event

In the continuing adventures of our littlest volunteer, Gibson Fischer, this time we find Gibson in rural Mississippi helping our Literacy AmeriCorps group at a Unity Event. We went to Mississippi, near Poplarville, to pick blueberries. (Unity events help our Corps to work as a team.) Later we visited with Rachel Nicolosi (Gibson's Fabulous Aunt Rachel) of the Literacy Alliance GNO and her husband Jim for lunch and a discussion with Abram Himelstein of the Neighborhood Story Project -- http://www.neighborhoodstoryproject.org/ . Abram explained how he began the project after his experience in AmeriCorps. Today the NSP is very popular and produces a series of books by and about people in New Orleans including "Coming Out the Door for the 9th Ward" which was used with One Book One New Orleans in 2007-08. Abram also discussed how we could use our AmeriCorps experiences to create similar programs ourselves or on topics that interest us.

But the highlight of the day was, as ever, the assistance rendered to us by Gibson as he encouraged us to pick blueberries, and he even picked a few himself (see the photos). Gibson wore a sun hat, and his mom Sarah put lots of sunscreen on him. So, he had a good time.

In the top photo we see Gibson being held by our AmeriCorps member Molly; his mom and dad are in the background. Next, we see him being held by Sarah with Gibson's Fabulous Aunt Rachel in the background picking blueberries. (She's an expert at this, by the way.) Then, we see Gibson picking berries; and then Sarah with Gibson. Next, we see Gibson putting picked berries into the bucket where we saved the berries. (We also ate them as we went along.) Then, we see Gibson standing up. Finally, we see Gibson relaxing with his mom and dad after a very productive morning.

Another fine job, Gibson!

We had quite a large crew today: Molly, Miraim, Kereem, Sarah, Owyn, Gibson, Abram, Jim, and Rachel and myself.

By the way, I took these photos with my new camera. I hope this new camera will be an improvement.

-- Adrian