allow me to reintroduce myself.

i wrote this on thanksgiving - yet neglected to post it! so here's one of our first (billy beat me to it!) blogs with our new team!

here it is - thanksgiving day in my hometown. i'm nursing a large cup of coffee, bundled up in a sweater, and waiting for my mom to get ready so that the two of us can tackle the southern feast that lies ahead of us to prepare for the next hours ahead. and although it's hard to believe that it's thanksgiving, it's even harder to believe that we depart for haiti in THIRTY EIGHT days. wow. when did that happen? we're so excited to head back, but i figured i'd post a little introduction post so that you as a follower get to know the type of people that are going with us to port-au-prince and limonade in january. hopefully, there will be more posts to follow this - as katie & i decided we'd make our team members write blog posts in the upcoming weeks to help facilitate some discussion and excitement about everything that is to come. so....allowme to introduce the 2011-2012 william & mary haiti compact team to you!

kylee - kPr - co-leader of the william & mary haiti compact, kylee was brought in to help brian (the original leader) in september of 2010 and works primarily with organizing communication with ICC, one of our community partners. kylee enjoys monograms, diet sundrop, crying because she's graduating so soon and she's not okay with it at all, being a

hot mess, telling stories, singing a cappella, tridelta,

beatboxing, and sending cracked-out e-mails.

katie - the other co-leader of the haiti compact, is in charge of all communication with gabrielle vincent, our contact with sonje ayiti (our second community partner), as well as organizing creole lesson. a fluent speaker of french, katie trolls websites to check the news for haiti and has been a wonderful source of information forour w&m haiti compact team. katie enjoys buying women's cargo pants from the maternity section in target, francophone culture, giggling, and working at the rec (okay, so maybe she doesn't exactly enjoy the whole working at the rec part, just the hanging out with friends at the rec part).

melody - melody is the associate director of the william & mary office of community engagement and we are more than thrilled to have her expertise and her as a member of the william & mary haiti compact. she enjoys babies, weighing babies, playing with babies, taking care of babies, her nephew (who is a baby), doing the double skinny arm, and did we mention it? babies. did we mention she also actually got to weigh a baby when we were in port-au-prince in may? because she did...

nick's hair is getting longer and longer by the day - and we all know what that means - that dreads like djaloki's must be coming soon. and we're excited about it. nick is a valued member of the w&m haiti compact team and often brings his love for the environment and wisdom to team meetings. when not getting excited to travel to port-au-prince, you can find nick longboarding throughout life, painting murals, working at the blue talon bistro (go visit him & grab some mac n' cheese), or having a love for music (except not country).

timmy - timmy, also known as "the mute," is a wonderful addition to our william & mary haiti compact team. he pioneers our fundraising efforts. when not getting excited for the haiti compact, you can find timmy being involved in every other organization on campus, from being an RA to leading branch out regional service trips to expressing his excitement for owning a john boat. timmy also tries as hard as possible to make other people on our haiti compact team the scapegoats so that it won't have to be him.

now that we've re-introduced our old team members - let's introduce our new ones. the four wonderful new team members that we cannot WAIT to take with us to haiti in january (btw - our trip is from the 2nd to the 12th).

hannah - we love hannah, despite the fact that she's from new jersey (JUST kidding) and are excited about all that she has to offer the william & mary haiti compact team as a sophomore. when hannah's not coming to haiti compact meetings, you might find her getting ready to apply to the ed school, hanging out with her sorority sisters in k∆, or loving lilly pulitzer.

brian - brian is also a new addition to the team and we love nothing more than his enthusiasm for learning everything he possibly can about haiti. brian got involved with the haiti compact by working with katie at the rec, and clearllllly by seeing how wonderful she was, he decided he just had to apply to be a member of our team. when brian's not being bff's with katie, he spends his time at the rec, helping organize the red cross blood drives that take place at william & mary, or hanging out with his brothers in ∆x.

billy - billy's a little bit of a late bloomer, and by that, we mean that he decided to be a member of the haiti compact as a senior - which we LOVE because it means that we get to hang out with him. he wins the award for being the first member to write a blogpost from here as well as being the only team member that is a twin. #winning. besides being a twin, billy works in the admissions office with kylee (he's SO lucky, right?), is on the end of his time as president of beta theta pi, and gives a rousing karaoke rendition of "deep inside of you" by third eye blind.

taylor - taylor seems to not be special because he doesn't have a facebook...and is a new team member. which means that i don't have any sort of picture to provide for him. maybe that's to his benefit (JUST kidding, everyone). taylor is great & is so excited to head to haiti with us in january not only because of his family connections to haiti, but also because he's using his expertise in business to help us in creating a business plan for sonje ayiti. taylor's sassy, sarcastic, and loves singing selena gomez in the shower - what could be better than that?

lots and lots of haiti love -

kylee (and the rest of the haiti compact team)