The Funductors First Adventure: Common Ground Center

Wow, this internship definitely had an exciting start to it! Our orientation was at Common Ground- The Cindy Nord Center for Renewal in Oberlin. I had never been to Common Ground before, so I had no idea what to expect when I pulled in the parking lot. My only clue was the email I got saying to wear comfortable shoes, so I at least knew it wouldn't be a typical day in the office. After a few minutes inside meeting the other people in the Leadership Lorain County Internship Program and getting some paperwork out of the way, we were headed outside to the gorgeous 21-acre grounds to see what was planned for us the rest of the day.

The first activity on the agenda was a game to teach us how to plan and work together as a team to accomplish a task. We had to hold the funnels you see above (with our pinkys always touching each other) and use every one to get a golf ball into a bucket. You can see Kaitlin third from the end on the left side working together with the rest of the team.

Next we were in the woods with a whole new goal. We had to pass all the interns (there are about 30 of us) from one place to another, the only catch that there was a "sleeping spider" and we couldn't just walk. We had to climb across in a net, which as you can see, was pretty far off the ground. We had to pick each other up into the net, make our way across, and help each other down on the other side. Above is Kaitlin being lifted up, and below you see me (Melody) making my way to the other side. 

It was a little scary getting lifted up, but knowing I had people spotting me ready to catch me if I fall and hearing their encouragement made it a lot of fun. 

We played a few other games that day, but this next one was definitely my favorite. Can you guess what we were doing by the picture? 

What you can't see is the two diverging tightropes we were walking on. The further we moved along the wider the distance got, and the more we had to lean on each other to keep from falling. It was really fun to push ourselves to trust people we had just met to make it as far as possible on the ropes. Two boys in our group made it to the end, being almost parallel to the ground! And you can see again the spotters we had to take away some of the nervousness and focus on how much fun it was. 

Kaitlin and I had a blast at Common Ground, and I would spend another day there in a heartbeat. I would absolutely recommend signing up for any of their day camps for kids or their adult programs. If we had such a great time in one afternoon I can only imagine what a full week would be like!

~Melody

*All photos were taken by Leadership Lorain County