APTA & Local/Traveling Volunteers

Miss Mary didn't come by the house last Friday. She ALWAYS comes by the house. Sometimes it's in a cab, sometimes it's on foot with her walker, but she always makes it. I told my volunteers that she undoubtedly would be coming by to inspect their work, but she never showed, and I came to find out that my heart was indeed making a connection with Miss Mary's case. I was worried about her.

My volunteers on Friday were 7 of a group of 10,000 people who were traveling to New Orleans for the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) Conference. Over 180 people in their organization signed up to volunteer with the St. Bernard Project... 180!!! and they would have had many more, but we simply couldn't manage any larger group (at this time of year) than 180! Having the support of the corporate world, and being able to see in-person all the outside-of-making-money work & volunteering that they do is pretty awesome. Thank you, APTA.


Cliff, Eve, Rachelle, Linda, Rick, Mike, Me & Kelly

We had a really great day, and finished many of the first layers of mud in the front bedroom, as well as the bathroom, and the hallway. There was lots of video'ing with this group, which was really fun - and it was Cliff's birthday, so we made sure to sing to him. Since he was quite the character, we hassled him a lot on camera for always slacking...which, for the entire group, was quite the contrary. I didn't need to crack any whips to get motivation going with this group! By the end of the day, the house looked like so:


Kitchen (no work done in here today)


The front bedroom (her deceased brother's bedroom)


The tub is coming out so Eve spent part of the day demo'ing the wood frame surrounding it


The hallway between the two bedrooms & bath


Miss Mary's bedroom that we primed today!

On Saturday, there was a small but mighty group of 4 that came to Mary's house to help out. EVERY ONE of them had volunteered with the St. Bernard Project before. It's one thing to dedicate your time for a day (and it's awesome!), but it's another to volunteer consistently, and all 4 of these volunteers had done just that.

Clark is a New Orleans native, and had 8 feet of water in his own house after Katrina. It took him over a year to get back home, and it was even longer and more frustrating to get his mother back into her home after the storm. I love working with volunteers who are from Nola, because I learn soooo much from them. Paola & Don were staying in New Orleans for a week, in midst of a long cross-country road trip, and had donated 2 days of their time earlier in the week to volunteer, and Kay just moved down to nola for nursing school, and has found SBP to be a great outlet for meeting people, helping people, and finding something meaningful to do for the community. It's amazing how much give-and-take goes on when you volunteer. You get back what you put into it, truly.

Here are some action photos of the mighty group of 4:


Don learning how to tape corners


Clark was blessed to drywall the HVAC unit. 8 ft tall, about 2.5'x2.5'. I think he hated me for it? haha


Paola helping Clark... with a little more experience, I would have set things up differently so the two of them weren't crawling under already-hung-drywall and having to spend lots of time in the tub...oops!


Kay mudding away

We were able to finish the drywall everywhere except the back utility closet! And the first layer of mud was almost finished in the front bedroom! So happy for all the work we completed :)

Thank you everyone for supporting St. Bernard Project with the Chase Community Giving campaign (via facebook) - we received 3rd place, which did not win us any money for more projects, but we'll try harder next time!

And thanks to my APTA volunteers and Clark, Paola, Don, and Kay!