Orange County Surprise!

PDO's happen all across the nation this time of year. The four districts of YFU USA vary in size and volunteer force: Coastal Rim (that's the district I'm a volunteer in), Northeast, Founder's, and Heartland. And I'm happy to report that our Berkeley PDO on the 16th was the largest PDO in our district! We pulled it off successfully! No student went hungry or thirsty, and no student left without filling out an evaluation (I think!), which gives us great feedback on improving for next year.

Within each district, fields are broken down and a Field Director is the staff member at the helm. My field is called North-Central California & Western Nevada. This includes the Bay Area, Sacramento, Lake Tahoe, the central valley down to Fresno, Santa Cruz/Monterey/Salinas, and Hawaii (even though it's not in the field name). That's a big area indeed! Now imagine being the Field Director for the Big Five field: Southern California, Arizona, Utah, the rest of Nevada, and southern Idaho. At least I think this is the delineation - boundaries have been moved in recent months.

One of the volunteers who was leading the PDO for Southern California had to suddenly back out at the last minute due to an injury. 15+ students expecting an orientation on the 16th were re-scheduled to the 30th! And without her to lead, they needed a volunteer to help manage the orientation and make sure the students in that area receive their information at an orientation.

Not surprisingly, I volunteered myself to head down to Huntington Beach for this Saturday's PDO in the Big Five field. Yes, dear readers, an entirely different field! And the district thought to send me down there. Awesomely enough, it's my birthday on Friday! So, I will be spending my birthday down south near the beach (for parts of the weekend anyway)!

The irony? It's supposed to be a bit cloudy and overcast down south, while the Bay Area receives a nice bump of heat this weekend. *shrug* Oh well. But I'm living up to my promise as a volunteer with YFU, which is so much more important to me than a sunny beach.

I'm looking forward to the orientation! I hope there will be some great photos and stories to tell after the fact! Look out Orange County....here comes Liz!