Arkansas video

A HODR video from Gassville...look for the BonaResponders in it! They are there!

Another new video!

Amanda put together a great collection of pictures and music from her time in Pass Christian over spring break. You will like it!

More Pictures are online

Moving Boards
Originally uploaded by FinanceProfessor

Almost 600 pictures now online from the Spring break trip!

We still have some more pictures coming from Pass Christian and Gassville, so stay tuned.

BTW I HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend using Piclens to view the entire set. It is amazing! Worth the trouble of downloading it. (here is the Internet Explorer version that a few people were asking about.)

FInal Blog entry from the Gassville Crew

While they have some pictures to upload, this is their final blog entry

March 4, 2008


Well, everyone made it safely back to St. Bonaventure.
The journey was long but well worth it. We'd like to
say thank you to everyone that made our spring break
the best ever. Frankly, none of us knew what to expect
when we first arrived in Gassville. We got there late
at night and none of us had ever seen tornado damage
before. It was quite an eye opener. Gassville has many
great benefits, such as the food and especially the
people. The families from Riverside Church of Christ
know how to cook! We ate like kings and queens everyday
for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Thank you everyone
that helped make that possible. I'd hate to have to judge
but I might give the first place meal to the Tuesday
night dinner, BBQ chicken, BBQ ribs, pulled pork,
chicken spaghetti, mixed fresh greens and salad. I heard
the desserts were amazing as well, but I had no room
left. The other meals included a full thanksgiving
dinner, homemade beef stew, and sausage gumbo. Some of the
best food we've ever had. Thank you so much!

Thank you to Bill and Beca for allowing us to work
with Hands On Disaster Response. We learned a lot,
especially how important it is to support the people both
physically and mentally by listening to their stories.

Thank you to Gary and Paula Flippin for letting us
stay two free nights at their lodge, Rim Shoals
(www.rimshoals.com), on the White River. The countryside was
beautiful on the River and the change of scenery was
particularly nice. The best perk was our ability to trade
in our air mattresses for real comfortable beds at
the cabin. Thanks again.

We all agreed that overall our trip was perfect
because the people in Gassville made it that way. They
really are the nicest people in the world. It was mind
blowing to all of us how friendly, caring, and supportive
the people in that tight nit community truly are. We
enjoyed hearing their stories.

Finally, Thank you BonaResponds for giving us this
wonderful opportunity and allowing us to venture on our own
through this amazing journey. We all had so much fun
and helped a lot of people at the same time.


Thank you from,
Tyler Drysdale
Mackenzie Edel
Tessa Ocke
Tim Ryan
Ryan Steele
Mike Vieyra
Jared YoungAnd on behalf of BonaResponds, let me offer you our thanks for a job well done!

If you went on the trip, this one will bring back memories!

Just watch it. If you did not go on the trip, it will not mean much to you.

A look back at a good week

Spring Break is over. The BonaResponds' Spring break trip is completed. All day I have been answering the question "how did it go?". Here are some of my thoughts.

The trip was good. It was not perfect but it was very good. The lack of tools and organization at many sites was annoying and cut into the the amount of work that the volunteers could get done. But as annoying as waiting for supplies was to us, it is just a small small reminder of how annoying waiting two and a half years to move back into your home is.

Most everyone worked hard. Of course there were exceptions, but they were just that, exceptions. To dwell on them misses the bigger picture. Volunteers paid over $200 each to go and drywall, paint, or haul trees to help people they did not know, and in most cases will never see again. The next time you hear that people no longer care, remember these volunteers. They do more than care, they do something positive to help those in need.

In the Gulf, many local residents and long term volunteers just are burned out. This shows up in the extreme cases as suicides, but in every day dealings this burn out shows up in lack of energy, depression, and just a mood of sadness.

Physically things are looking better. Many homes will never be rebuilt and for miles in New Orleans it still is awful, but progress is being made in most places. Biloxi continues to lead the way, but everywhere things are getting better, just at a rate that is much too slow.

Did we help things along? Definitely. From the physical labor to the "just being here" the volunteers should all be proud of how they spent their spring break! In fact, I can't imagine a better way to spend a break.

Very Good Day

Pearlington:

What a good day!

We really kept busy today and there was lots of work and the right tools so all got quite a bit done in Arkansas and in Pearlington. Jerry said their morning was great, but afternoon was spent on finding right tools and errands.

Today started for us here in Pearlington on the brisk side as there was a frost overnight. The main job today was to be taking down a tent from the Dupont site in Del Isle and taking back the tarp and all of the following and supports to camp.

But since the job would take many people and the bus was late, we decided to squeeze a paint job in. And so, in less than an hour, 4 rooms in two houses were primed. By then the bus made it back to camp.

Then we went to the Tent site and proceeded to rip apart the flooring and load it onto a trailer. While it sounds easy, it was actually really hard work. And the volunteers were excellent. Indeed, it was nothing short of a beehive of activity for much of the day.

By 4:40 when we left we had definitely gotten much more work done on it than I had anticipated under even rosy forecasts.

In the evening meeting we also learned that the other teams that had gone out had equally impressive days with much dry walling getting done and $5000 of lumber and supplies being delivered to a home under construction.

And with that successful day, the week came that much closer to an end. I am always sad when a BonaResponds' trip nears completion. Unfortunately the week is about to end. I am sure we will be back. I am sure we will respond to other disasters and to other local needs, but I am still sad. I don't know why, but it happens every time.

New pictures are online

Emily
Originally uploaded by FinanceProfessor

Some more pictures are online here.

From Rich on the Importance of Volunteering

This was sent a few days ago, but was somehow lost in the shuffle. It is From Rich Bilodeau at Randy's Rangers in Pass Christian:

BonaResponds Spring Break Trip Reflection

February 25, 2008

A story of inspiration and the value of volunteer work

Yesterday we spent sometime moving wood, tools, and other resources to one of the sites where we are building a shed. The shed is for a family that moved to Mississippi about a year ago as survivors of a post Katrina New Orleans. They built a new home about 30 minutes driving distance from Randy’s Rangers, (one of the sites we are staying at while down here.) She and her children left their apartment in New Orleans a few days before Hurricane Katrina destroyed the city. She had no idea that Hurricane Katrina would take everything she had. Since her and her four children’s displacement they lived in various places, one including a FEMA trailer for nine months. She said that the nine months spent living in the FEMA trailer was one of the most arduous experiences of her life. Now she is happy to have left New Orleans and has no desire to return, she loves her new home. Her children love that they can play in their own backyard. It is great to hear a story of success in an area that is still dominated by devastation.

Today we spent a good part of the day completing the floor of the Shed and we managed to raise two walls. The Children returned home from school and immediately came outside to spend time with us as we worked. A few of us played football and basketball with them in between working on the shed. It was great to spend time with them. Once it started getting dark we packed up and headed back to Randy’s (all 12 of us on the back of a utility trailer with no walls). It was an interesting trip needless to say, between the side trips of going circles in stony parking lot and ironically hitting every pot-hole on the road, Randy managed to make it more fun than it should have been. It was a comical site to see and experience, one I will never forget and one I must relive tomorrow.

Upon returning to camp Jerry and I took sometime to check out the area around us and we got some great photos. Jerry brought me to the former site of a home that is now marked by a staircase leading to an empty foundation and a realty sign out front (an all too common site to see down here). However, this place was different than the others. It was marked by a hand painted sign leaned against the massive, still standing, dead tree. The sign read “Lie down and bleed for a while, then get up and fight.” The seen was incredibly surreal and somewhat disturbing. While I stood there it evoked in me the sense of loss and suffering these people have and continue to experience that most of us cannot begin to understand or relate to. While a grim reminder of all that is still wrong here, it also served as a reminder to all that is yet to be accomplished. Our country has lied down and bled, but it is the people who comprise BonaResponds that stand up and continue the fight over two years after Katrina!

Half day

Today was sort of a rest day for all of our teams. The two Mississippi sites worked a half day (painting, drywalling, and even some electrical work) while the Arkansas team took the day off to rest up from the hard work they have been putting in.

I would have more updates, but this tent is freezing (it is 35 degrees out and the tent it not heated) and I really want to go get into a sleeping bag to warm up.

Greetings from Arkansas

February 26,

When we arrived in Gassville, AR last Saturday; we were excited yet nervous about what the week ahead would bring. Now just three days later we have already become comfortable with our surroundings and made new friends here at Hands On as well as in the community. The town of Gassville has a population of just 1,706; that is several hundred less than the small tight knit community at St. Bonaventure. We are all familiar with the Bona-Bubble; the comfort, friends and great community. This town has those same characteristics associated with the Bona-Bubble.

Our day started where Monday left off; raking debris from the yard of damaged homes. Tyler and Mike were later asked to assist a group of men hanging siding on a house down the street. The rest of our group was deployed to a home that had sustained sever damage to the surrounding trees as well as some structural damage to the home. Tim went and picked Tyler and Mike up on his way to delivering lunch to the crew at the tree clearing site. After lunch all of the members of Hands On and BonaResponds worked together clearing trees and gathering debris from the yard. Several of us donned the chainsaw attire and learned the art of cutting down trees. Mike fit the part with his red flannel button down, jeans, and work boots.

Although our accommodations can not be complained about; but we found an escape. One of the many great people that we have meet this week set us up with a cabin on the White River; this allowed us to relax on our day off.

Ya’ll come back now! Ya Hear.

P.S. We saw Lurch, check him out: http://www.lurchandtheherd.com/

Anne's post from Randy's Rangers in Pass Christina

From Anne Dlugosz:
Pass Christian, Mississippi: This trip has been quite amusing so far. It may be due to the fact that we are Randy’s last group and have the run of the campsite, it could be just Randy himself, or it might be that all of us together is, well, a handful. I can’t think of any better of a way to appreciate the fragility of life than to ride in the trailer bed with Randy driving the truck. Anyway, we’ve been working outside, and the weather is great (tomorrow it will probably storm since I said that).

We’ve just started the addition to Kimball’s Seafood Restaurant, which was apparently a landmark business in Pass Christian. By helping this family business rebuild, we’re hoping it will make this town look just a little more like it used to. We can’t fix every place all at once, but we can restore things bit by bit.

We’re also building a shed for a family that lost almost everything in the storm. Today we got the floor and walls down, and we were rewarded with chocolate cake and smiles. According to one of the kids in the family, as soon as the shed is built, their daddy is going to let them camp out in it. I’m going to make an assumption here and guess that that’s motivation for all of us. This has been a promising start, and I’m fairly confident the rest of the week will be just as fun and heartening.

Portfolio and diversification

While most of the readers of this blog know me mainly as the leader of BonaResponds, my real job is a finance professor, so I guess it should not come as a surprise that when I got stuck today trying to describe the day, I fell back on finance to explain it.

In finance we often speak of the importance of diversification within your portfolio. That way if some asset does poorly, it will be offset by some assets that does well.

With that in mind I will say the day was not a loss. There were some teams (in Arkansas, in Pass Christian, and even a couple of teams here in Pearlington) that did very well. The gains made by this crews off set the less than stellar days the teams associated with me had.

What went wrong? It was not the lack of desire, motivation, or effort, but rather something that was out of the hands of the volunteers (both literally and figuratively): tools.

The lack of tools and supplies was very apparent from the start. The roll-out was delayed as Rick looked for supplies. Two teams were dropped at sites without paint, brushes, or tools of any kind. When supplies arrived, the supplies were not enough to allow all to work at once. This continued for the entire morning until a few of us could get back from buying nearly $300 of supplies that were donated from BonaResponds.

But even then the work was slow-going, so in spite of a strong rally at the close of the day (priming walls got done in several rooms), both teams down in the dumps as we
arrived back in camp.

Once there, news of good days at other sites in Pearlington lifted our overall tally. And when news from Arkansas and Pass Christian arrived, we were able to see that overall BonaResponds did a great deal of good today. Overall we had cut trees, cleaned yards, hung drywall, sanded drywall, primed, textured, and even stopped to cheer some residents we had helped on past trips.

Thus, proving that once again that finance is correct and it really is the overall portfolio performance, and not that of a single asset, that serves as the correct measure of performance. By this broader measure, the performance of BonaResponds was very good indeed!

More Pictures

Many more pictures from Pearlington.

After Dinner Talk

Pearlington: Tonight the Pearlington group went out to eat to Turtle Landing in Pearlington. While the food was good, the real highlight of the night was after dinner: Connie (a local resident who rode out the storm on her roof) and Glen (the leader of One house at a time) spoke for nearly an hour on storm and on the recovery effort.

Some of the highlights:

* The storm was unreal. 30 feet of water in most places. Houses splitting apart. Survival was close to impossible. Trees falling. Pure chaos.

* The hours after the storm were similarly harrowing with water ever where. Connie and her husband survived in a church.

* The days after the storm were drawn out episodes of trying to find friends, homes, and streets. It was terrifying.

* Many residents have had a long hard battle to recover. Some have not and have given up and committed suicide.

* Volunteering down here not only helps, but improves the morale of the residents.

Greetings from Gassville Arkansas

Twas the 25th day of the 2nd month in the 2008th
year. Our illustrious day began with a thin blanket of
fog and a crisp chill upon our ears. Surprisingly
enough it all began only a smidgen behind schedule. Tim
our swashbuckling, industrious leader delayed our
arrival due to his addiction of tobacco-filled rods. Upon
our arrival at headquarters we were immediately
dispatched to a barren area of town. With shovels and rakes in
hand we all began clearing gargantuan piles of
detritus. Soon after, we realized our manual labor was no
match for these astounding piles. At this point we began
tediously raking another debris encompassed field.
After hours of back wrenching work, we started a fun
filled game of Caber Tossing. (Stay tuned for video
footage) Tyler Drysdale turned out to be the brawniest
Scottish Warrior of all. From here we went back to our
Riverside bungalow to satisfy our ravenous stomachs.
After our delectable hamburgers and Ozarka water we headed
to another dismantled lawn. At this desolate location
we all (for the most part) began vigorously raking
and shoveling asphalt-sand bonded roofing material (aka
shingles, not the disease!) Throughout our
rip-roaring afternoon we shared endless stories and farcical
jokes. We wrapped up our day with a scrumptious dinner
made up of turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes and gravy.
It’s safe to say that collectively we at BonaResponds
Arkansas know how to have a boisterous and monumental
time. Happy blogging to all, and to all a good night!



BonaResponds Arkansas, over and out. "

FAST Noontime update

Arkansas:
From Jared at lunch: It is really cold. We had to change plans because of the weather. Now cleaning lawns etc. The temperature itself is not that bad, but the combo of wind and rain was just too much. The new job is good however and the work is keeping us warm.

Randy's:
From Jerry: Working on Kimballs (a seafood restaurant in Pass Christian). No problems. Randy is yelling, but that is normal.

Pearlington:
Sort of slow morning. Lack of tools really slowed us. Had 5 teams out (2 insulation, 2 sanding drywall--although at times because of lack of tools each of the sanding teams also were on road clean up--which is an unwanted, but greatly appreciated job that really does make the area look better.
* more people in camp--both from BonaResponds (as Eric, Bridgett, Kristina, and Megan arrived) and a couple of other groups (Philadelphia area and one from MD.)

once groups got right tools and got going quite a bit done. Hopefully the afternoon will be as good!

Assembly Line

Assembly Line
Originally uploaded by FinanceProfessor.

One of our crews worked on cleaning up a yard today. It was a fairly small job in the whole scheme of things. The yard was a real mess (the contractors had left debris piles everywhere). Several large lumber piles had to be moved, sorted, and restacked. We did this largely via an assembly line of about 12 volunteers.

This assembly line got the work done pretty well and also got me thinking about how in many ways the recovery efforts following Katrina are also being carried out via an assembly line: wave after wave of volunteers work for a while, before handing off the work to those next in line.

This week it is again our turn to do the work.

Update from Gassville

Ryan and Tyler, two of the BonaReponds' volunteers who are spending spring break in Gassville Arkansas helping the area recover, sent the following update on their work there. It is two days worth:

It was cold, foggy and 3:30 a.m. on Saturday. The bus filled with over 70 Bonaventure student-volunteers dropped us off at the Super 8 Motel in Louisville, Ky. We crashed to bed and then were set to get up in a few hours to make the eight-hour venture to Gassville, Ark. Seven of us piled into a Kia mini-van around noon and were off. The drive proved to be longer than anticipated, but when our destination finally came before us we knew why we were there. We were wondering where the damage from the tornados was and then there it was. A house to the right in ruin; another one with a roof missing; rubbage and pieces of buildings all around us
and trees ripped up from underneath. We arrived to our the church around 10 p.m., unpacked, relaxed and got some much-needed sleep from a long 20 hours of
traveling.

and then for Day

Day 1: Sunday was our first work day in Gassville. We joined together with some volunteers from Hands on Disaster Response (HODR).

First off was cleaning up the wreckage from a church knocked down during the storm. It was tough to look at the rubbage there now and imagining what once stood there. We weren't the only ones volunteering there: a local nurse with her father and daughter and dozens of Hands on volunteers. Everyone there had the same mindset of helping all these unfortunate people out.

So many local residents helping out and listening to the honks from cars for their appreciation driving by showed that our effort was appreciated.

Next up after the morning was moving a couple's things out of their house they moved into just seven days before the storm hit. They had lived there for just seven days and now had to move their things into storage for the time being while their house, which was seriously damaged in the storm, was rebuilt.

Moving the couple's belongings out was a sad reminder of the damage done and the lives affected by this gruesome event. It was also a good reminder of how much our help is needed.

Why we are in Pearlington's Elementary School

Like a Great Phoenix: "Many consider Pearlington to be the epicenter of Katrina’s destruction in Mississippi. The town was ripped apart by the ravages of the hurricane, flooding and some 37 tornadoes spawned devastating storm.

It seems the hardest hit by disasters are often those who can afford it the least. The town of Pearlington is no exception. The only building considered structurally sound in town was the Charles Murphy Elementary School [where we are staying]. It was here that its citizens converged to regroup and begin to put back the pieces of their shattered community."

Today the town has about 1000 residents or about 60% of the pre Katrina inhabitants.

Thanks to Emily for finding this!