Boston to Austin Connection, Day 3

Shalom, Y'all!

We've had a wonderful last full day of working, playing, and learning in Austin. The day started at Emmanuel Methodist Church, a partner of Casa Marianella, where we were welcomed with open arms by the Pastor and his very kind congregation. Everyone was very appreciative of our coming to work in Austin, specifically at Casa Marianella, and it was really nice for the teens to spend some time with a community that would be profoundly impacted by the work they were doing.

After a quick bite we headed over to Casa Marianella where we spent the remainder of our afternoon. Casa Marianella is a shelter for immigrants just settling into life in the US and provides a variety of sources for its residents. Casa provides medical support, legal services, job placement services as well as English lessons and a warm bed at night. Having the opportunity to see the consequences of some of the policies and procedures surrounding immigration law in the US was a really impactful experience; the teens were able to see what we discussed prior to arriving in Austin along with what we learned at the UT Immigration Law Clinic in practice. The teens heard from a full-time staff member and Americorps volunteer about the program and then got to work on a variety of odd jobs around Casa. The staff and residents were incredibly grateful for the work our kids did. Once we finished up the work around the houses we all walked over to a local school to play soccer with some residents. It was the perfect way to end the day.

Between the soccer and manual labor, we worked up quite an appetite so we went over to South Congress (a favorite stretch of street among Austinites and tourists) for some good food and relaxation. Being that we're Jewish, and there's no such thing as too much food, following dinner we took the teens over to the original Whole Foods for an awesome and totally overwhelming grocery store experience. It was everything we all dreamed it would be and more.

We've had an amazing time in Austin and are incredibly proud of how hard the teens have worked and and how well they've represented themselves and our community. They've done some wonderful things here and we couldn't be more impressed with all of them.

Hannah and Lauren