So, we're being sent home tomorrow. The Disaster Response Team and other national 2-1-1 volunteers were called here to help set up the call center and get them ready to field the calls themselves... and we've done that in record time... a matter of days! When we got here on Friday, they had volunteers crammed together in a room of long tables, keeping notes on paper... and already they've upgraded to a much larger room with computers for each volunteer- about 40 or so! I'm so impressed at how quickly and efficiently everything was done here. And there was a lot to do- train the volunteers, train the volunteer trainers (for after we've left), get the system set up, make sure they can maintain it after we've left, provide some respite for the overworked general 2-1-1 staff (who had been working 12 hour shifts at least for over a week!), get the crashed database system (which was completely lost when the disaster calls first started coming in!) back up and running, etc. And with our team of 18 people that were flown in from around the country, all the 2-1-1 staff that were already here in San Diego, and all of the incredible volunteers, who all did fantastic work, everything that needed to be done was done so well and very quickly. I'm so excited to be a part of this team of such fantastic people, and I'm so glad that there was a way I could help out! While I'll be glad to get home, I must admit, I'm a little sad that we were able to do everything so quickly, because I'm going to miss working with everyone I've met out here. This really has been a great experience... we've learned so much and made new friends... we'll remember this experience for a long, long time.
We plan to post some of our pictures from this trip on Tuesday or Wednesday... whenever we get a chance to upload them... so check back later this week to put faces to the people we've been talking about!
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