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.