SPRING BREAK in MISSISSIPPI

This past week I spent some time down in Pascagoula, Mississippi with a group of ASU students for an Alternative Spring Break trip. After a fresh shower and a meal that doesn't consist of PB&J I am beginning to reflect on a great week. 11 hours. 11 hours I spent in a 12 passenger van to Mississippi with a bunch of students I had only seen a handful of times. We had a vague idea of the type of work we would be doing in a place we knew nothing about. We got down to Pascagoula Saturday evening and soon made plans to go see a Mardi Gras parade in Mobile, Alabama the next day. What a great way to start out a trip! I never knew that I could become so excited about getting beads thrown at me!

Yay Beads!!

Throughout the week we worked on a house that had been impacted by Hurricane Katrina. The house had been flooded and within the last 5 years it has started to slowly get pieced back together. Apparently, soon after Katrina contractors would come to work on people's homes, promise to fix up all the damage but instead took off with their money and left their homes in ruins. Our group got to work on a home by caulking and painting the whole house. We started off the week with excess amounts of enthusiasm and nearly had the house finished painting by the end of the first day. After a little pep talk at the end of our first day, we decided to go back and be a little more meticulous with the work we were doing.

We worked with a man who had grown up in Mississippi but then moved around the country a lot. He heard about things taking place back in MS and decided to help out. What he does is he raises money from the help of donors and finds volunteers to fix up homes in the Pascagoula area. In the past two years he has helped over 50 families who were effected by Katrina.

While working, we kept ourselves entertained fairly well. We sang songs. We spoke in ridiculous accents. We turned the paint into face paint. We climbed up on the roof just to catch a few rays of sun. It was great! An older gentleman Ned was working with us on the house. Ned became a major theme in newly created songs, conversations and inside jokes. The best moments were when we got Ned to sing "Big Green Tractor" by Jason Aldean with us while working on the house. There was also another guy working on the house who was born in MN so of course we got to talking about the land of 10,000 lakes! He now lives in MN but has been coming back to MN in the summers to participate in the triathlon in Buffalo, MN. Crazy meeting up with someone familiar with my home town on a service trip in Mississippi.

Oh Ned!

The group was 9 girls and 1 guy - poor Clay! Everyone was great! On the ride down we were still figuring out each others' names, but by the end of the week we were laughing like crazy and crackin' jokes with each other like we had known each other for years. I don't think I have ever laughed so much in one week. It's funny to me how this group of strangers have seen the real me, while the people I go to class with every day have only - at best- seen a glimpse of who I really am.

Excited faces!!

Wednesday there was a storm in the morning that prevented us from working. We spent the day playing Sardines and taking naps. We also decided to take a little driving tour around Pascagoula. The houses that are now on the Gulf are million dollar homes but there are still a lot of empty lots right there on the coast. You can see other parts of the city are still abandoned and destroyed from the Hurricane. We also somehow ended up by the port just around the time everyone was getting off of work. I don't recommend doing that. YIKES! So many people!

By Friday we had the house all painted on the outside as well as the inside. We even got to grout the kitchen and bathroom floors, which was an unexpected but welcomed task. Our help wasn't a major impact like the home next to us that had 40 people working on it and was gutted and resided within the week. But we did get to move the house one step closer to being a place someone can come home to and hopefully be a continued sign of hope for the people of Mississippi.

The best part of the week was going to get some BBQ at The Shed. Rumor has it this BBQ & Blues joint has been featured on Dinners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. It has some incredible BBQ and you can sit outside under the stars warmed by the heat provided by the nearby bonfire all while listening to a great blues band play hits from Johnny Cash and Elvis among many others. It was fantastic! If you ever end up in Ocean Springs, Mississippi you must go eat there! You won't regret it.

And then after another LONG 11 hour drive I am back in Boone. I am so glad I got the opportunity to go to Mississippi for this trip. I was glad to get to know some students that don't live in my building and to be a part of something bigger than myself. I was reminded that one person can really make a difference in this world. I know that I may not be fixing homes and restoring hope, but I do hope that something I am doing here at ASU is making a difference. So all in all - GREAT trip! Mississippi, it's been real!