Disaster Relief week 1

Hey everyone! We arrived safely in lake City Florida last Saturday late afternoon.  Once we arrived, we were literally thrown right into orientation of the project.  Our sponsor, Suzanne, was at the hotel to greet us and explain what is going on in Columbia County, where we work.  She is awesome.  She is the CEO of this counties part of Catholic Charities.  She literally has her hand in so many different organizations in and around Lake City.  She knows everyone and anyone doing anything to help another person.  She kept telling us how blessed the county is to have us and she was just excited to get to know each one of us right away.  Suzanne showed us a slide show of pictures from the flooding before some of the roads became roads again.  The pictures were horrifying.  It was so sad to see such terrible conditions people had to endure before they got some sort of help or support.  After our brief orientation with her, we got the night to relax after such a long 10 hour day of driving.

Sunday we had the morning off and more orientation in the afternoon.  I took the morning to lay at the pool after church and try to get some sun.  The orientation we had was with Suzanne and David, our supervisor.  We learned the background and history of Catholic Charities from Suzanne and more about the county in general from David.  This county is in a literal disaster even almost 2 months post storm.  We saw more pictures and an aerial view of the county that FEMA filmed.  Water is still everywhere.  Once we had our orientation taken care of, the county and Suzanne took us to a Chinese buffet for lupper.  Lunch supper if you will.  There we got to meet Danny, Suzanne’s husband, who is serving as our site supervisor, kind of.  He works with us daily, but he is a volunteer for Catholic Charities.  We ate with them, told them more about us, and learned more about the county. 

Monday was day one of work.  This day we were supposed to be taking an inventory of which homes needed help still.  However, we were going to homes which we found out were empty, the owners were at home, or the area didn’t get water in their homes.  This day was kind of slow and it concerned us.  Tuesday however, we went right at it.  We got to work at Miss Hatcher’s home.  Miss Hatcher is an elderly woman who was living alone when the storm hit.  She was living with literally 86 years of her own belongings in the house.  The storm washed all of her belongings everywhere all over her house and yard.  The water line in some rooms where the water hit was up to my shoulders.  Can you imagine living through this?  She is in her late 80’s and thankfully has her son living on the same property, next door.  Her trailer from her back yard was blown across the creek in her yard almost 50 yards away.  It was amazing.  This day had my emotions running everywhere from feeling bad for her to feeling sad knowing that this woman was going through such a hard time like this.  We will hopefully be back with her later on to help finish her home.  This day of work was emotionally and physically draining.  It was kind of a wake up to what the entire spike is going to be like.  It is going to be no joke that is for sure.



Outside of Miss Hatcher's house. The water came up that high on her screen

Wednesday we woke up for PT in the morning where the sun was rising in Florida and it was already about 85 degrees at 5:30am.  Tough, but we powered through.  This day we worked with Miss Thompson.  She lived in a trailer that had floors that were so wet and giving out and a roof that was caving in.  We had to tear up her rug in the room she was solely living.  It had 2 chairs, one that she slept on, the other was holding water.  Her yard had debris from inside her home all over it.  We had to maintain the yard and the inside of the house.  Halfway through the day it started to do a Florida down pour.  What we didn’t realize until we were in the car for about 15 minutes was that we moved buckets before to do her floor and they were catching water from the rain.  2 of my teammates had to run in and replace the buckets, where they found her sitting in her car.  She goes in her car during rain storms because her roof is that bad.  This part of the day really had an effect on me since I can’t imagine that being something I had to do during my life.  I really am learning to appreciate more and more every day the house I live in.

Thursday we got to work at the food bank with Suzanne, something she helps out at with Catholic Charities twice a month.  This morning was amazing.  Even before the food arrived there were people waiting.  We organized a canned goods table, bread table, and desserts.  The line from 9-12 was consistently LONG.  It was amazing to see how many families needed assistance.  We gave food to 105 families with a total of 284 people in the 3 hours we helped.  I got to color with some children teaching them about fruits and vegetables and I was in heaven.  A couple of them were so cute.  I asked one little girl how you go about cooking eggplant, which she told me was a “veggie” and she said, and I quote, “you slice it, you bake it, and it turns into eggs!”  Had to be the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.  What really hit me was when I had to help some of the adults read the sheets they needed to fill out before receiving their food.  Some of them couldn’t even read the sheets.  It was amazing to me to have this be the situation because I am lucky I have graduated college and have a degree when some of these people who are much older than I am barely completed the 3^rd grade.  It made me, again, be thankful for my education and life I have.  Once 12 hit, Suzanne takes all of her help to lunch at this UNREAL Florida seafood restaurant.  I got baked scallops and catfish.  IT WAS AMAZING.  So good.  She then let us have the afternoon off!  Much needed, the entire team napped.





Team at the food bank.

  Friday, we worked with Mr. Davis.  His home was also in the storm and it was better off than the first two homes, but everyone has a story.  We got to actually muck and gut his home.  We tore some of his walls down and helped him make progress to start the rebuilding process.  Danny said he was impressed with how fast we got the walls down and how neatly we worked.  Obviously, we are the best.  Mr Davidson was a great man.  He was telling us his stories.  He and his wife have been staying at the Super 8 since the storm and he is just ready to have a home again.  His stories had a big effect on us all and we were happy we were there to help.  We are going back to finish his home tomorrow to start off our new week.


Before inside Mr. Davis's house.





After we gutted the inside.

Yesterday we had an all day ISP which put me over 80 ISP hours!  We need at least 80 to graduate so I am good to go.  The ISP was a fundraiser for the families who had damage on their homes.  It was an all day music festival.  Really cool local bands came to perform and it was a cool day.  We relaxed last night watching gLee reruns and went to bed early.  Today I got up early to go to the gym and for a run.  It helps that the cleaning lady came to wake me up, tough life we have a cleaning lady. 

This project is going to be a tough one mentally and physically.  I know it will take a serious toll on me, but I am ready and that’s what bed is for.  a fresh clean pair of sheets every night and a nicely cleaned room.  Pretty neat living in a hotel if I do say so myself.  That’s it for week 1 of disaster relief.  Our sponsor starts each day with a word of the day, I think I will do one for the week.  My personal word for this week is gratitude.  Burlington lost an awesome person over the weekend who I know means a lot to my family and the people of Lake City have lost things that we usually daily take for granted.  I am going to go through this week being grateful for everything and everyday I have.  Things like this project and the loss that I know people of our town are going through help you to realize that life is short and we all need to be grateful for what we do have.  Hope y’all have a good week!