2008 Woodie Awards
Helping Kansas town rebuild: blog 2
Brittni Garcia/Online Reporter
Issue date: 11/30/07 Section: Writers Outlet
- Page 1 of 1
Online Reporter spent her Thanksgiving break helping tornado ravaged Greensburg, KS rebuild and recalls her mission trip in four blogs. This is the second of four.
This morning several of the group decided to either stay at our visitation site or go to a mass service.
I decided to go to a mass that was hosted by the Christian community. The service took place in a trailer about 100 feet from my stay. I arrived to find out that the service consisted of about 10 people around a table with bibles in their hands. The people were very welcoming; however, it was not my religion.
It was a welcoming crowd and a very personal group of people. Later the group visited the largest hand dug well. It is one of the biggest attractions to go see in Greensburg. It was gated up but we were allowed to look down the well with Matt Deighton, director of Volunteer Services.
Deighton notified us that the show "Dirty Jobs" is going to do a show in their town and clean out the well. I am definitely looking forward to watching that on T.V.
We then were taken to either work on the house we started on the day before or work on a Santa House. I chose to work with a group of seven on the Santa House. The Santa House is a little house built in the Davis Park, located on Main Street, for families to visit when Santa is present at the park.
The Santa House will be used in a week after a holiday parade on Main Street. The other group painted a volunteer guest house that would host volunteers who would stay awhile. Deighton set up these projects for us to work on throughout our stay.
We then worked until about 5:30 p.m. and then ended our work day. We arrived back at the volunteer site where we made dinner. It has been quite a night.
My phone has no service and my wireless Internet is getting no signal. I sit here next to the Kiowa County Memorial Hospital, which is three huge tents connected to each other, watching the slow traffic and wonder why we are one of the few groups of volunteers here in this town.
I really have not seen enough people here to help rebuild. They are getting money, but working hands is definitely needed.
This morning several of the group decided to either stay at our visitation site or go to a mass service.
I decided to go to a mass that was hosted by the Christian community. The service took place in a trailer about 100 feet from my stay. I arrived to find out that the service consisted of about 10 people around a table with bibles in their hands. The people were very welcoming; however, it was not my religion.
It was a welcoming crowd and a very personal group of people. Later the group visited the largest hand dug well. It is one of the biggest attractions to go see in Greensburg. It was gated up but we were allowed to look down the well with Matt Deighton, director of Volunteer Services.
Deighton notified us that the show "Dirty Jobs" is going to do a show in their town and clean out the well. I am definitely looking forward to watching that on T.V.
We then were taken to either work on the house we started on the day before or work on a Santa House. I chose to work with a group of seven on the Santa House. The Santa House is a little house built in the Davis Park, located on Main Street, for families to visit when Santa is present at the park.
The Santa House will be used in a week after a holiday parade on Main Street. The other group painted a volunteer guest house that would host volunteers who would stay awhile. Deighton set up these projects for us to work on throughout our stay.
We then worked until about 5:30 p.m. and then ended our work day. We arrived back at the volunteer site where we made dinner. It has been quite a night.
My phone has no service and my wireless Internet is getting no signal. I sit here next to the Kiowa County Memorial Hospital, which is three huge tents connected to each other, watching the slow traffic and wonder why we are one of the few groups of volunteers here in this town.
I really have not seen enough people here to help rebuild. They are getting money, but working hands is definitely needed.
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