Our home base is a separate wing off Moss Point’s United Methodist Church hall that was outfitted especially for 2005 Hurricane Katrina volunteers. In our first seasons on the Gulf Coast we lived in North Gulfport’s Turkey Creek neighborhood. We were invited in recent seasons to be in Moss Point, home of the Pascagoula Audubon Center, about 40 miles due east of Gulfport. Our home base has gender-separate classrooms, with a separate classroom for staffers. VISIONS provides burly air mattresses; you’ll bring a pillow, twin sheets, and a sleeping bag. You’ll have a cubby for your personal stuff and handy access to bathrooms, showers, and spacious kitchen and dining facilities.

Five days a week, after breakfast, you will head to your chosen service project with your work team and staffer or two. We typically work five or six hours, with short breaks and at least one hour for lunch. A rotating group of three or four students and one staffer stays back from projects each day for "home base" crew. The crew tidies up and cleans our living space, collects the mail, prepares lunch, and later helps our dinner cook prepare the meal and clean up afterwards. The home base crew might also join in a work crew later in the day.

After work we make time for other activities, such as short nature hikes, visiting community elders and other friends, playing or watching sports with local youth, listening to Cajun music, walking into town for ice cream and other snacks, showering or just relaxing before dinner. Several evenings each week after dinner, we set aside time to meet as a group of volunteers. This is a slow-down time to speak and listen to each other, share our reactions to the day or iron out occasional issues together. Once a week, everyone has the opportunity to call home. We also do laundry once a week.

Coastal Mississippi has a soft beauty and warm social charm that is captivating. There are constant opportunities to explore and learn about our Gulf Coast community. At least one of our work projects is in Turkey Creek in North Gulfport; after work we’ll have barbecues and fish fries with community friends there. We’ll spend a long day and evening in New Orleans. Other weekends trips include a boat trip to Dauphin Island, a bayou boat tour with Mark LaSalle and good ole Cajun cooking afterwards, canoeing or kayaking and camping offshore, and, of course, regular trips to the beach to swim, play ultimate frisbee, and just be together.