Thursday 29th April
This morning we enjoyed a very welcomed light breakfast, a choice of fruit, yoghurt and Pam’s homemade granola – another great recipe that’s heading back to the UK with us.
We enjoy breakfast whilst Monkey (the dog) enjoys his sunny spot.
After yet another fond farewell our first stop was Picken’s County Middle School. We arrived to see and take part in a special assembly/event where the middle school students were showing off their skills and opportunities to prospective students from a local elementary school. We heard the choir sing, the band play, saw a video produced by the pupils and watched the cheer leaders perform. The kids seemed delighted when we were asked to ‘speak English’ and tell them a little about ourselves and why we were there. Gareth took to the stage with gusto although the team may have enjoyed the ‘performance’ a little more than the kids. Sadly, his tuneful rendition of ‘Fly me to the moon’ seemed to bemuse the school band and fell on the deaf ears of the students. He was perhaps too 'fly for a white guy'!
Bendy and energetic cheerleaders perform at the high school.
Our Rotarian guide from this point on was Chris LeMieux, the Principle of Picken’s County Middle School. He gave us brief tour and explained about the rotary-led Youthact and Interact programmes which encourage school children to set up fundraising initiatives. He then whisked us off to visit Tate Elimentary School. The Jasperians are particularly proud of this school as it is made entirely of the local marble and is one of the oldest schools in the state.
Marble school.
After a whistle-stop tour we were again on the road and due to the legendary traffic congestion found ourselves catapulted out of the truck and giving our presentation to our next host rotary club – South Gwinnett. It was lovely to see some familiar faces in the crowd as Melissa, Doug, Jeremy and Chris (the American GSE team) had turned up. Rotarian Andy Copeland was now in charge and we headed off to the Gwinnett County Sherriffs Department Direct Supervision Facility which can house up to 2744 inmates at a time. We sense this may have been a warning to the team about what sort of accommodation we might expect should we be caught taking more photos of guns in Walmart!
Restraining devices for unruly inmates on J-pod.
One highlight of this visit was to meet some of the inmates and their dogs who are part of a special rehabilitation programme. This programme means specially selected inmates are given the opportunity to learn dog training skills and care for dogs which would have been put down at the pound. These dogs arrive at the prison on the day they were to be ‘euthanised’ and are trained up by the inmates so that they may be re-homed in loving families. It seemed to be a very positive programme.
Next stop was the nearby 911 emergency call centre. This state of the art facility only opened in February and has been visited by experts from all over the world as it is at the cutting edge of technology and innovations in crisis management. The building is hurricane, tornado, ice storm and sunshine proof and the generators could keep the building powered for 14 days. That is a lot of building!
Finally we boarded the bus and within no time we were deposited at our ‘rest home’. The Garden Plaza complex is a luscious retirement home with pool, Jacuzzi, gym, pool room, internet cafe, crocket lawn and restaurant. We had a good meal then retired for the night after another exhausting but interesting day.
Andrea's final resting place, only for the weekend, mind!
Thanks to all who helped and drove us about!
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