The thrift store where I volunteer is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2022. To prepare for events marking that milestone one of the managers of our shop asked us to submit a photo of ourselves in 1972. This is the one I sent her.
This photo was taken during the summer of 1972 after I had just completed my first year of college. I was working for the Mennonite church leading work camps. Teenagers from across Canada and the United States signed up to work for three weeks in a certain location and college students like myself provided leadership to groups of eight teens who lived together during their time of service.
I led three such camps during that summer. One was at a large mental health institution in Denver Colorado that housed hundreds of children and adults. Our group members did music therapy with the residents. I also led a group at a church in Winnipeg where we’d been asked to build a playground. I led the third group at a camp in Mississippi where we actually built a cabin.
I don’t seem to have kept many photos from that summer experience but did find these two from my third work camp group in Mississippi where we built and painted a cabin. In the photo of me eating in my granny glasses, I notice I have embroidered a flower onto my shirt, and peeking out of my shirt is a string of beads, my boyfriend, now husband had made me as a gift
I traveled from location to location by plane but flew standby in order to save money. The whole thing was a growing and eye-opening experience for sure.
I was already dating my husband Dave and he was working in Coaldale Alberta that summer. We exchanged letters almost every day and I still have all of them.
Where were you in 72?
Other posts……….
What Next? 
It was one year before I was born!
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