Day 18 - Sydney Non-Event Day (with an event)

So today was officially slated to be a "day off" for everyone. Since there is no such thing as a "weekend" for the next 9 months, we try to take advantage of our off days to get some exercise in, relax, get away from the Relay, away from our work, and away from each other....but we haven't really had any of these types of days yet... and today was no exception.
Today, we decided to take an opportunity to "practice what we preach" by getting involved in the local community. Mike, our Relay Security Manager (and former RCMP member/current Professor) set up for the Relay team to spend a few hours at a local skateboard park. It would be a chance for us to interact with some youth while performing some community service. We went equipped with rubber gloves and garbage bags and took to the park to clean it up. There was garbage and crap all over. Big ditches full of food wrappers and cigarette packs, pop cans, coffee cups, and just about anything you could imagine...including 2 shopping carts! By the time we were finished, we had filled about 10 garbage bags full of trash, hosted a free BBQ for all the kids who were hanging out, and had the opportunity to share our messaging with a mostly attentive audience. The kids all helped to pitch in and pick up trash with us once they saw what we were doing.It was pretty cool. It was a crummy, rainy day with scattered periods of sunshine but what a great opportunity to make a difference for a group of youth....how big of a difference we made may never be known, but I guarantee that for some of them, we did more for them than simply clean up their park.

Jake, our quadriplegic host, thought he would get in on the action by wheeling down a ramp....Jake does silly stuff sometimes....and after 3 hours at the hospital and 5 stitches in his head, we all had a good laugh about it. Personally, I think he just wanted to get out of having to pick up trash!

Our whole clean up team with some of the local skaters.

Jonesy