Odd jobs

As usual we have many different projects and jobs going on at the same time:

Tollman Rd. Cemetery
A few weeks ago we started working on a cemetery in Pass Christian, where we're located. The cemetery seems to have been neglected since Katrina - trees were down, some on top of headstones, and the entire cemetery had been overtaken with weeds. One of the fallen trees - a massive oak - had been trimmed down by another organization but whoever started the job was unable to completely remove the tree. We've been working as much as possible removing the fallen trees, replacing pushed over tombstones and weeding the terribly overgrown cemetery. We had a group of volunteers work extremely hard with us for a day and they made a huge dent in the job, but this is a big cemetery and weeding takes a lot more time than I would have ever imagined. We definitely need more volunteer groups (which we are seeking) to complete this project but will not leave the project undone or allow for the cemetery to once again become neglected.

Frank
Bill Sr. and Bill Jr. have been helping a man named Frank since they were down here in the winter with Hands-On USA. Frank and his wife are wonderful people who need an incredible amount of help rebuilding. His wife, Georgia, always says "Oh, he'll find something for you to do." From odd jobs like weedwacking to major rebuilding jobs like building stairs up to the attic we do whatever we can for the couple. Recently Marianne, Jen and I dug a trench down the side of the house which was sprayed to fight off termites. Bill Jr. wired cable to the many rooms of the house. Later that week Jen, Marianne and I returned with Bontay (a high schooler who's been volunteering with us), to put the ceiling up on Frank's carport. The consistency of the relationship we've formed is incredible as we get to see the continued progress and Frank and Georgia know they can rely on a group of people, in a situation where many families still feel very much forgotten or neglected.

St. Vincent dePaul Pharmacy
Another continuing project is the Saint Vincent dePaul's Pharmacy. The free pharmacy has been a partner with Persevere since our start. Bill Sr. remodeled the inside of the trailer over the winter (the pharmacy is temporarily being run out of trailer) to get them up and running again. We've conitinued to do whatever needed, including painting the exterior of the trailer recently. Last week we had 5 recent BC grads volunteering with us. One was here for a week before she starts at NYU Medical School. The 4 others made Persevere a stop on their cross-country road trip to California where they will begin Jesuit Volunteer Corps placements. In one day the group was able to seal the windows and paint the pharmacy from the drab and dingy yellow to a more warm, vibrant baby blue.

Katrina-filled garage
This week Jen and I cleaned out a garage which hadn’t been touched since Katrina. The garage, sitting behind the house of an elderly woman, is going to be used as a secure place to hold building materials for her home. We were told the job would take at least a couple of days with a decent-sized crew and to watch out for black widows, snakes – generally, to beware of anything and everything that could be in there. So, instead of a sizeable crew, Jen and I found ourselves driving up to the garage alone, unable to find spare hands to help out. When we first got there the garage door was off but leaning mostly over its opening and there was stuff that had been tossed around by Katrina filling the garage – you could barely even step inside. With a well-devised plan to keep Jen only in “secured” areas (due to an aversion to snakes) we cleared the whole thing out in a day. Finding that garage’s floor was one of the most surprising things I’ve encountered in my time in Mississippi, no joke. And that’s including the oven, 1940s coffee vending machine and piano we found in that garage alone! …Luckily, neither black widows, nor snakes were among the odd finds.

Jerry's Mowers

Today was my 3rd trip to Jerry's Mowers - a small, local, hidden store which sells and services lawn mowers, saws, etc. It's a great place. It's run by an elderly woman who is now my hero. She knows absolutely everything about tools. Very personal service, you can tell everyone who goes there (aside from us) has been going there for years. So today, as I pulled up in the big red dumper, the high school kid who has always helped me says "Uh, oh, what's the problem?" Every time I'm there one of the men working at Jerry's comments: "That saw is as big as you are," "You actually use that?" or just give a generally surprised look that I'm there with whatever tool I have and just pulled up in a big truck. (Granted, the pole saw is at least a couple feet taller than me, and no I do not use it.) It's a funny thing down here: everyone has a pick-up, so women drive them often. But, at the same time, there are some very distinct gender roles and blatant surprise when a woman does "a man's job." Everyone at Jerry's is incredibly nice and helpful, and I find the surprise is quite amusing...especially now that I think they're beginning to realize I do know what I'm talking about, even if I do wear a skirt.
My goal for the year: to become friends with the people at Jerry's so I can get one of their awesome t-shirts with a huge picture of a guy on a mower across the front.

water damage

Thursday I met Dong and his family. He and his wife bought their house 2 months before the storm hit. Their entire one-story house was flooded. Although they received very little help from FEMA and had no insurance they have been able to rebuild entirely due to support from volunteer groups and donations. Dong is now single-handedly building an addition to his house for extended family members who need a place to live. Dong has no construction experience, but that doesn't deter him - he is doing what he can with the materials he has.
Dong is a Vietnamese man who does not speak much English. His 3rd grade daughter Kathy has learned English at school and translates for her father. While his wife works he takes care of their two children, Kathy and Kevin and builds as much as possible. Thursday Bill and I helped Dong put up three walls of the addition. The job took more time than it normally would due to the language barrier - lost translations, gestures and pictures. It was amazing, however, to be able to work with such a generous, hard-working man who is so determined to do what he is able for his family. Dong made us egg-rolls for lunch and while I played cards with Kathy and Kevin he told us (through translation) about his struggles in the past year as well as all that has been accomplished.

I also recently met Ron, a retired man who has been taking photographs of Katrina's damage and the area's recovery since 2 days after the storm. He and his wife's home, in the first block from the ocean, was washed away by Katrina. Ron grew up two lots away from Persevere Headquarters, in a home nearly 3 blocks away from the water, which was also washed away by the storm. He and his wife are rebuilding a further inland according to the strict new building codes in the same area where they used to live. While they build they are staying with an elderly friend in his home. With all the work in dealing with the loss of their home and rebuilding anew, Ron and his wife are doing everything they can for the man with whom they are staying including asking Persevere to do a tree job on the man's property. The trees had been officially identified as a threat but since they were not falling or leaning, Ron had been told that they were not priority. Saturday we went over to the man's house where we took down the two rotted trees.

It was very hard for me to comprehend the damage water can do. It still is hard to imagine how so much water can travel so far inland and move so fast. Storm surge facts: the storm surge was 27' high (some people guess as high as 40' in some areas) and went as far as 6 mi. inland along the Gulf Coast and up to 12 mi. in areas along rivers and bays. "More than half of the 13 casinos in the state, which were floated on barges to comply with Mississippi land-based gambling laws, were washed hundreds of yards inland by waves" (CBS News article below).

CBS News: "Mississippi Coast Areas Wiped Out" http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/01/katrina/main810916.shtml
Video from Beau Rivage along the water - keep in mind that the opening in the Beau Rivage sign you see is about one story high
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5954521938928173924&q=Hurricane+KAtrina
Mississippi Public Broadcasting video (here you see the barges on land and great birds-eye view shots)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8004256799851293431&q=Katrina+mississippi

Everett & Elaine

Our only neighbors on the street, Everett and Elaine, moved back into their home last week. We brought them home-baked "welcome back to the neighborhood" cookies the other night. The elderly couple was so thrilled to be back in their new home and be able to share that experience with us. Within less than a minute of being inside their home Elaine was showing us through every corner of the house. She showed us their new closet, telling us that all of the clothes inside were from a distribution center and how grateful she was for those free articles.

Everett, a man in his late sixties, had cleared their lot and the interior of their house by January entirely by himself. When it was finally time to rebuild his wife urged him to go to a local church to seek help from volunteers. That's where he met a man named Ken. As Everett puts it "once I told him about all the work I'd already done, he knew we were one of the families he wanted to help." Ken worked with Everett every day until the couple's recent move-in. Elaine mentioned that he installed their kitchen counter, cabinets and appliances. He helped Everett with everything from the plumbing to the molding on the walls. Without his help and the labor he donated, the couple said their house would have been finished but entirely bare - there would not have been money for furniture or anything else.

Everett is a remarkable man. Aside from all of the impressive work he accomplished on his own in preparation for rebuilding, Everett is an impressive man in terms of his reflective nature. Everett was near tears when telling us about how much it meant to him that Ken was so devoted to helping his family. Ken went to their house every day and stayed with the couple until their home was complete. Everett told us that before Katrina, he sadly doesn't know if he would have gone to another part of the country to donate his time and effort had a disaster hit elsewhere. He said he just didn't really understand a situation like that or the immense fortune it was to have volunteer help before he lived through it. Now he says that if a disaster hits somewhere else in the country he will go and serve that community as much as he is able, as so many, including Ken, did for him and Lorraine. Everett is now donating his time to another rebuilding project, working with Ken. Now that his home is completed he will work toward the heart-warming moment of moving back in for another family.

the pre-Katrina, post-Katrina divide

The other day I asked a 12-yr-old boy "What's your favorite video game?" After thinking for a minute, he responded, "Well, before Katrina or after Katrina?" "Uh, before Katrina" I decided. "Zelda" was his quick response. "And after Katrina?" I continued. "Well.....Zelda." Even twelve-year-olds are making this distinction in every aspect of their lives, down to their choice in video games.

Hope Haven is the pre-Katrina childrens' shelter we've been building office space for. Pre-Katrina Hope Haven was a shelter for abused children with twelve staff members. All twelve lost their homes. The shelter was also destroyed. Due to the loss of staff Terry, the founder, reinvented the organization according to the needs of the area and the resources available.
Post-Katrina Hope Haven functions as a foster home for up to 6 children permanently and an emergency shelter. In the case of an emergency in which children are involved, Hope Haven has the capacity to house up to twelve children temporarily. It also provides training and assistance to other foster families in the area.
With its new home and the afore-mentioned office space in an adjacent building, Hope Haven is now open and received children yesterday. The home's foster family is ecstatic to receive their 4 children.
Yesterday when we were over at Hope Haven working the foster mom, Beverly, came in in a flurry of excitement pulling out last minute things from the storage room to make the kids' welcome perfect. Two days ago the kids went over to the house for a visit yesterday afternoon. Seeing Beverly with those kids was priceless.

Karen is one of the three remaining staff members of Hope Haven. Yesterday we were able to help her move into her new home. She closed on another house less than a month ago. She and her family moved in, painted, and went to meet the neighbors who exclaimed "Oh, it's so great that the last family finally got rid of the black mold in that house so they could sell it." Karen had never been informed of any black mold (which had not been removed) and had to move out. Now, with her husband who is in the special forces recently deployed to the Middle East, she and her daughter, Sofia, have finally begun to settle into a home. As we were unloading the moving truck we came accross some of Sofia's artwork which had been on a top shelf, just avoiding the 4' of water Katrina put in their house. Karen told us that she wept like a baby when she finally entered her house after the storm because she was so grateful that this sentimental treasure had been spared.

GIRLS & flood katrina

Yes, that's right, Persevere Disaster Relief's operational team is made of of one guy and three girls. It's funny to see people's reactions to that. They come home to see what work is being done and instead of walking in to find a team of burly men they find us...three 5'3" women who probably look like we're still in high school - speaking for myself at least. Yesterday and today we worked on a gutting job removing 2 massive built-in cabinets and the wood paneling and ceiling tiles in 3 rooms. When the homeowner's son came over yesterday he asked Marianne, Jen and me where the rest of the team was. We said he was looking at it. He said, "Really? No guys?" His look was almost of disbelief. After talking to us and looking around his mom's house he complimented that we were doing very good work. It's nice to prove people wrong sometimes.

We continued talking and it turns out the son has a house right on the beach in Waveland. Structurally it survived and they're rebuilding. But they didn't get any hurricane insurance, of course because the damage was from the water....Flood Katrina, right?

MISSISSIPPI MOMENTS OF THE WEEK:
finding a 4" grasshopper in my shirt hanging outside to dry

a church with a sign out front which reads "YOU THINK IT'S HOT HERE?"

a man in the supermarket who upon reading Marianne's Boston College shirt, in a very thick southern accent and smile said "Boston? Bunch of liberals up there"

spray painted on the back of an electrical van: "CAUTION, DRIVER JUST DOESN'T GIVE A SHIT ANYMORE"