Wednesday, March 07, 2007

A look at all of our camps--Enterprise Alabama

Enterprise Alabama—By Jim

Today we switched parts of town. We moved from the area immediately adjacent to the Enterprise High to the Baptist Hills region to the West of town. On three different occasions over the past two days I have had people come up to me and suggest we go to this area as it is the poorer section of town and was not only very hard hit but largely forgotten. So today we did. And “they” were right. Wow, it was bad.

The houses here were all smaller but many had been completely destroyed with roofs blown off, windows broken, and trees and wires down everywhere you looked. It was bad. Really bad.

Working with Persevere Volunteers we came to the job site and I almost laughed. There was no way we could clear it. There were at least 15-20 trees down in the now shared (the fences had been smashed by falling trees). And these were not small ornamentals! They were HUGE! Indeed one was at least 10 feet in diameter and was estimated to have gone through the Civil War. But even more than the HUGE tree, was the sheer magnitude of the work. There was just so much to do! It was surely impossible.

But with the help of a tractor, some local volunteers, and a much needed tractor, BonaResponds and Persevere succeeded in moving most of the downed trees and brush around the yards. The yards still need a part of another day, but the improvement was simply remarkable.

Again the crew was phenomenal: they did not even stop for lunch and never once complained. To a person they worked incredibly hard. How hard, in a futile effort to keep up, I even worked! In fact, it was probably the most physically demanding day of tree removal I have ever done!

At the end of the work day, we physically left Enterprise. To a person we wish we could stay and do more, but it is time to go to Mississippi. So we drove to Pass Christian where we separated into our assigned teams. For the time we spent in Alabama, I have only great things got say, I expect hard work for BonaResponders and this group may have raised the bar.

GREAT JOB!

oh and here are more pictures!

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