A couple of weeks ago, I had expressed my concern that I would not be able to make it to training by the first day (May 18, 2009) because my grandfather, in West Virginia, who had taken ill and recently passed-away. I had left West Virginia a couple of months ago to take care of him and be with my family. I left my schedule open to be where I was needed. Because of the circumstance I did not think I would be able to adhere to my commitment to the Heifer International summer Education Volunteer program.
After my grandfather passed away, I emailed Jasmine Hardy, the Volunteer Administrative Assistant at Heifer Ranch, and informed her of my circumstances. I expressed my concern that the time between my grandfather passing and the first day of the volunteer program didn’t leaver much time for me to return to LA to pack my things.
After exchanging email messages, Jasmine called me and we discussed the circumstances. She told me that she would present my situation to Heifer and get back to me and tell me if I was permitted to start the program two weeks late.
I flew back to LA, spending time with my girlfriend, Kristina, who drove with me from LA to Lake Isabella, CA to help me pack-up my things. I went back and packed my things as if I were heading to Heifer Ranch, though I did not know what the decision of Heifer would be, but I knew whatever happened, things would work out the way they were supposed to – they always do.
A few days after I arrived in California, I received an email and a phone message from Jasmine at Heifer informing me that I was to report to Heifer Ranch on the morning of Monday, June 1st. Immediately, I got on Orbitz.com and made my flight arrangements to fly out on May 31st.
When my flight had landed, I had been over 48 hours without any real sleep. Sure, I had slept on the planes, but that can not ever be counted as real sleep unless you are riding first class – given you have not had 2 layovers on a 2,000 mile trip. Even before I deplaned, I was already sweating from the tremendous heat and humidity of the Arkansas summer. I would later learn that it was not expected to get much cooler for the rest of my visit. In Florida, where I went to college, I had grown used to extreme heat and humidity, but since I moved to California, I had grown accustomed to (and even spoiled by) the dry desert air. I am malleable and knew that the heat would not be of my greatest challenges that lay before me in the coming months.
When I landed in Little Rock, I deplaned and called Jacob, who Jasmine told me would be picking me up, as I made my way to Baggage Claim. When I got to Baggage Claim, I inspected my bags (mainly my photo and video gear) to see if everything was present and not broken. Everything seemed to be A-OK – except for the appearance that everything had been rummaged through by TSA (which is to be expected when you stuff your bags full of external hard drives (which I’m sure look suspicious when viewed through the x-ray scan. So, with my bags in hand, I marched out into the late afternoon sun to wait for Jacob who texted me that he would be arriving shortly.
Jacob Sheatsley is the Project Education Coordinator at “the Ranch” and a good friend of mine who I have known for over twenty years since the days of Maxwell Hill Elementary School all the way through the whole public school adventure until we graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1999. From there he went off to college at Appalachian University in North Carolina, and I moved to Huntington, WV to study at Marshall University then onto Orlando, Florida to study film at Full Sail University. As it usually does, time and distance came between our friendship, but we would touch base periodically and see each other back in our hometown of Beckley over the holidays and always could jump right in to conversation like we hadn’t missed a beat.
Several years ago, over the holidays, Jacob had told me about Heifer and the work that he was doing there. I think, at the time, he was a volunteer. The things that he told me about the program and about Heifer and the work that they did to end world hunger and care for the environment was inspiring. It was not until a few years ago that I was browsing the Internet when I came across the Heifer website.
After I graduated from Full Sail I took nearly a year off before starting graduate school, the online Entertainment Business Master’s Program at my alma mater. The program requires that you do one year of volunteer work with a non-profit organization. I started thinking about what my thesis would be and decided to create a business plan for a media company that provides video and Internet marketing solutions for Non-Profits whose goals are social advocacy and positive environmental change. Once I wrote the first draft of my business plan, it was time to research non-profits that shared my goals of social and environmental betterment; I thought of Heifer International.
I studied Heifer’s website, read about the history of the organization, about the founder, Dan West and his vision and ambition to end world hunger by taking literal the old proverb about teaching someone to fish as opposed to just giving them one. Instead of fish, he used cows, heifers (as well as other livestock) purchased and raised through donation dollars and exported the livestock to families in need, and educating those families on how to live completely sustainable lives. These families in turn were encourage to “Pass the gift” by donating the offspring of their animal to other families in need, in order to ‘pay it forward’ and create an infection of goodwill that could save the world.
I fell in love with the ideals and convictions of the Heifer organization and was eager to find out how I could get involved, volunteer and learn about the inner workings of this wonderful group.
At the time I was doing all of this research and planning, I was preparing to head back to my hometown of Beckley, West Virginia for the holidays. I knew that I would be seeing my old friend Jacob, and I was looking forward to talking to him and learning more about Heifer, the work that they do and how I could get involved.
Over the holidays, I met up with Jacob at his parents’ house for their family Christmas party and we talked about, among other things, Heifer and the volunteer program. I told him about my interest in coming out to the ranch. He answered some questions that I had and invited me to come and see the ranch for myself.
As fate would have it, I went to Florida after New Years to spend some time with my girlfriend, Kristina. She was in the process of moving out to Los Angeles and had booked her flight for the first week of February. She had planned on leaving her car behind and making arrangements to get it at a later time. I offered to drive her car for her from Orlando to Los Angeles to save her from having to be without her vehicle, save me some money on a plane ticket (gas prices had finally fallen to the point that it was actually more economical to drive her Honda Civic across country and not fly) and the trip would give me the opportunity to make a slight detour to Perryville, Arkansas to visit my friend and see Heifer Ranch for myself.
During my five-day journey cross-country, I stopped in Perryville, visited Jacob for the evening and got up in the morning and met him at the Ranch and he took me on a brief tour of the grounds before I loaded back up in the car and made my journey back to LA. I already knew that I wanted to volunteer and my short visit to Arkansas and to Heifer Ranch only furthered my eagerness to apply.
On the drive from Arkansas to Los Angeles, I contacted my school, informed them of my plans and drafted a letter of intent. I got online and filled out an application on the Heifer website and waited to hear back from someone.
It wasn’t long before Jasmine had contacted me and set an appointment for her to interview me via phone. A couple of weeks later, she contacted me and conducted the interview which was a series of questions about me, my history and why I wanted to volunteer at Heifer. I also had to fax her a release for Heifer to run a criminal background check on me. She thanked me for my interest and told me that she would be getting back with me to notify me of the status of my application.
I wanted to get started as soon as possible. There are two volunteer terms for the volunteer program; one in the spring and the other in the summer. There is also an option to volunteer for an entire year. A year of service qualifies the participant to receive a monetary award from Americorp, a federally funded program that rewards volunteers by giving them money to go towards their school tuition. The current award from Americorp for a year of service is around $6,000 (the Obama administration is currently working to pass legislation to increase that amount).
I got back to LA and started working on the post-production on a hip-hop video that had recently been shot by a colleague. My mother and step-dad came to visit me for a weekend, and then shortly after they left, I drove to pick up Kristina at the airport. Kristina and I spent a few weeks with each other (the longest we had been together since I had moved from Central Florida in April of last year) and then I got a phone call from my mother that my grandfather was in the hospital and dying. Three days later, I hopped on a plane to West Virginia and headed home to be with my family. I would stay there for nearly three months, helping my family and staying most nights watching my grandfather at the hospice house so that my mother and grandmother could get some rest. Sadly, my grandfather passed away in late April.
While I was in West Virginia, I was contacted by Jasmine who informed me that I had been accepted into the summer volunteer program. I was excited and eagerly accepted the invitation though I had increasing concerns that there would be a conflict of schedule because I had very little time to get back to LA and pack for the summer. Plus, I was worried that about my grandmother and leaving her alone so soon after the passing of my grandfather. Nevertheless, I boarded a plane mid-May and headed back to California to pack my gear for Arkansas.
Once I had got back to LA, I realized that there was no way that I was going to be able to make it to Arkansas by the start date. In my initial blog post, I had stated my plan to take a train from LA to Arkansas. I quickly had to veto that because that was 4 days of travel; 4 days that I could not spare. I called Jasmine and informed her of my predicament and told her that I could not foresee that I would be able to make it to the ranch before June 1st. She told me that she would get back with me. A few days later, she got back with me and gave me the good news; I had been granted permission to come late. I was going to miss the two-week training period, which would be vital, imperative to my work as an education volunteer. I knew I would have to work hard to catch-up, but it was a challenge that I was eager to step up to.
So, back to the airport in Little Rock… Jacob picks me up, helps me load my things into his Volkswagen and he asks me if I am hungry; I always am. He said that because it was a Sunday, it would be difficult to find a place that would be open. Apparently, Arkansas is a place that takes their Sabbath Day very seriously. However, we were able to find a quaint little pizza place that served an amazing little Greek pie and dollar cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
Over our meal, we caught up, chatted about everything from The Ranch, his work on ecological awareness, his travels abroad to my goals, intentions and aspirations as a volunteer at Heifer. After our meal, we made the 45-minute drive from Little Rock to Perryville, Heifer Ranch, and my room at the Volunteer House, Valley View, where I would lay my head every night.
When I arrived at Valley View, I was greeted by about 15 housemates whom I will be sharing the Heifer experience with for the next few months. “Oh, so you are Sean. We were wondering if you were going to ever show-up!” seemed to be the most common greeting.
I met my roommate, Drew, who works in maintenance and over-sees the repairs and issuing of all of the community bicycles on the ranch- yesterday I put myself on a waiting list for a bike so I can more easily get around the 1,500 acres that will be my home for the summer.
After I got partially unpacked, I walked across the gravel road and behind the community building across from the Valley View house to where I was told there was a campfire and people congregating. I sat down at the fire and met several more volunteers; Chance (Maintenance), Becca, Forrest, and Alex (a German exchange who had just gotten back from New York and was featured on the Late Show with Jimmy Fallon).
After hanging-out for a little while, I went back into Valley View where I met some more of my housemates; Brandy and Ashley (who stay on the other side of the common area adjacent to my room), Mary,Ari, and several others whom to I apologize, I am still trying to learn your names.
Severely sleep deprived, jet-lagged, and needing to wake up early the next morning (Monday) to meet Jasmine to start my orientation, I popped an ambien and crashed in my twin bed – after Brandy helped me find some sheets for my bed and a towel for a much needed shower.
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