So I'm sitting in the meditation room of my "beautiful" volunteer housing, thinking about how wonderful life is, even despite all the downers I COULD be focusing on. Camp Hope is... Well, Home...I guess. And let me fill you in on my temporary home. First of all, Camp Hope is an old middle school transformed into volunteer housing. Therefore...that means they get to cram about 32 girls into one room. On bunkbeds, with no limit to the stuff they bring. Which means...Yes, You guessed it, Not Enough Space & Too Much Estrogen! It's pretty werid living in a space the size of a prison cell, and living out of a backpack. Needless to say, I spend next to no time in my room. And when I do I'm relaxing, changing, or sleeping. It's homey, after you get use to it.
My daily routine goes a little something like this:
- Wake up at 6:30, hating that I can't hit snooze and sleep in like I did through school---Oh but wait...Sometimes we get up at 5:30 and do P.T.....and that ain't no joke...it's HARDCORE!
- Get dressed into my LOVELY uniform, that I will admit I don't wash until the end of the week
- Brush my teeth, after waiting several minutes to get to sink behind the long line of volunteers who haven't perfected the art of using a bathroom with no mirror or untimed sink. (not to mention, Camp Hope holds about 1,000 volunteers at once)
- Go to breakfast, which also includes a line. LONG ONE! and eat usually eggs and bacon for breakfast.
-Pack a lunch, which is PB & J with an apple or orange (sometimes a muffin or 2) EVERYDAY!
- Put on the sexy steeltoes! (takes forever...boy do I love slip-ons after wearing those)
- Pile into the van!
- Get dropped off at MY HOUSE!
- Do Construction & Lead Volunteers at MY HOUSE!
- Clean up!
- Pile into the van...
-Maybe have a meeting.
- Get "home"
- Eat, after waiting in the long line in your filty uniform.
- Shower! in the community(when I say community, I still get my own stall) showers...with no pressure, but THANKFULLY hot water!:)
- Relax a little, and go to bed! To start the next day off with the same thing!
Ah, The beauty of all of this though. IS that...Even though I have so much to complain about that I would usually complain about before, I look past it. And I'm able to do so because of the passion I have for what I'm here for. And after learning what is and isn't important in life. It hardly crosses my mind that I have hardly any luxaries. But how could it, knowing that so many people around me have nothing! Have to rebuild their lives, starting from where they wake up in the morning. I can't complain, It would ultimately make the whole situation worse. Just a little reminder to not take for granted everything you have!
So, My job!
I work for the St. Bernard Project as a Site Supervisor. Sounds so professional! & I am assigned to a house, where I, ALONE, have to direct volunteers to rebuild a home. Mind you, it's only the interior of the house. But construction nonetheless! So I've learned tons of leadership, communication, and construction skills. I LOVE IT!
The St. Bernard Project is a non-profit. (Always in need of a donation) That rebuilds homes for around $10,000 per home for elderly, people with disabilities, and families with schoolage children. However, the house must be structurally sound. If you want to know more; their website is: http://www.stbernardproject.org/index.html YOU CAN ALWAYS VOLUNTEER OR DONATE MONEY! :)
But furthermore on what I do for them. Every week, new volunteers arrive, which is really neat. They each have different skills and personalities, and the change really makes the job exciting, however sometimes a little slower because you are teaching them everything! I can defiantely see these houses going up faster if skilled individuals were involved. But hey, I'm working on my skills daily:) What I've learned to do is, mud and sand drywall, texture drywall, put in laminate floors, cut and install baseboard, and install doors. I've also primed and painted, and laid stick-on tile, but that's nothing new. Oh I use POWER TOOLS...daily. :) Love it! It's such a fulfilling job, seein the progress you make every week, on the house and the volunteers. (Even though I get slim to no training, I feel like it's a very common sense thing, building a house) I'm so elated that I get to be a part of helping one more family get into their home and start to restore a sense of normal daily routine to their life and to see my homeowner's face light up, everytime she walks in the house and sees the progress.
Who by the way is Dawn. She has a 4 year old daughter named Hannah and works cleaning houses. She is such a sweetheart and I think doing so well for losing everything. She has really taken it well, and has an amazing attitude. She sees it as more or less, I can't change the past and I just have to pick up the pieces and move on. It's beautiful and very admirable. Here's her Katrina story. She was not a homeowner before the storm, she has always rented and when told to evacuate, did so, with only 3 days of necessities for the trip. For that is what the usual evacuation is like. You leave for 3 days til the storm is gone and come home to debris and damage, but a home nonetheless. However, this time, the levees broke. And the parish filled with water, up to 30 ft high. And so everyone's homes were destroyed. St. Bernard Parish was 100% uninhabitable. So upon coming home weeks after the storm and waiting for the water to be pumped out, Dawn salvaged what she could from her rental home. Which was hardly anything, she says she got some of Hannah's belongings but that is about all. And even though she could come home, she couldn't return, it was uninhabitable. So she lived in a FEMA trailer with 35 OTHER PEOPLE! Slept in a little room with 10 OTHERS! She also lived in a hotel for awhile after until revcieving her very own FEMA trailer, which is not glamorous or roomy. Her trailer sits to this day, almost 3 years later, on the frontlawn of her mom's house. So in the midst of moving, she bought the house on Marietta St. for cheap off of the demolish list. Which is essentially the houses that people abandoned and didn't want to deal with but were inspected by contracters and deemed structurally sound. And now we are rebuilding it for her, and are pretty close to done with it on the 5th week. And they say they take 6-8 weeks. We are apparently crusing through ours! So proud! And I just can't wait to hand her the keys back and say "Welcome Home!" Especially after our weekly Thursdays, when Dawn cooks for the volunteers and we get to learn all about her. One thing that really hit me is that she said, "I go to reach for things, that I had for years before the storm, and I use daily, I'll hunt for it and then later realize that it's not there. That it no longer exists, the storm took it, and I'll never get it back." So this is just one story of the 65,000 people who inhabited St. Bernard Parish. I just can't imagine that there are so many people left without homes. And lookin' around down here it really just reminds me what truly is important in life, it's not the materialistic things at all. Life is 10% situation and 90% attitude. And I completely agree...
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