Saturday/Sunday May 2nd  & 3rd 2009.

The beginning of Forgotten Angels second adventure, after the great success of last years trip to Haiti, begins. There were eight members of the group in this first wave. Piloted by Rock men's soccer coach Matt Thompson, assisted by his very helpful GPS system, the group piled into the van and headed off towards New Orleans!

We successfully crossed Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky and made it into Tennessee in the late hours of  Saturday night, with the only hiccups being Thompson and co-pilot Jeremy Deighton's (Men's Soccer) Karaoke style singing. 

The second prong of the journey to New Orleans begun in the early hours of Sunday morning for the rest of the group. Well, closer to Saturday night than Sunday morning in many of the traveler's opinions. A quick flight to Atlanta woke them up a bit, inspiring an intense game of hide and seek!

At around the same time the Road –Trippers were narrowly avoiding a tornado that touched down in Alabama as they were entering Mississippi. Mid-afternoon resulted in the arrival of both groups at our destination. We were all exhausted, but enthusiastic to finally have arrived and to see what was awaiting us.

Entering into the city was the first welcome we received: shock and many levels of disbelief found us all. Many of us had expected run down and in-need areas, however, the devastation and the extent to which it spread was something none of us had expected. 

Our new home became the 1st street United Saints recovery project church. Air mattresses and outdoor showers await us, yet exhaustion and anticipation is bound to send us into sweet and deep sleep very soon! 

Shout out to: Coach Noreen. we all already miss you and wish you were here!

Monday, May 4th 2009

The crew got off to an early start with a 7am wake-up call to discus over breakfast the day's tasks. Daryl, the United Saints director, gave us a quick and enthusiastic ladder safety demo before heading off to our job sites for the day. The majority of the group found themselves at Woodrow Jackson's house for necessary demolition work due to a severe electric fire. A few stayed behind to install bathtubs in the church apartments and the rest went to put meals together and pass them out to an endless line of hungry and eager community members at the Angel Food Center.

Things at Woodrow's house got off to an electrifying start as lightening lit up the sky while we were running extension cords throughout the dilapidated house. Once things got settled, we got to work on removing several toilets and bathtubs, tearing down sheetrock and ripping up the floor on what was once a back porch. Things continued on smoothly despite a few malfunctioning respirators and an overflowing dumpster.

While knocking down walls with a sledgehammer, we had our first injury. Splinters of wood caught the forehead of Teresa Elliott (Field Hockey), causing a bit of a mishap, which, thanks to our resident certified first aide responder, was quickly taken care of. Crisis averted.

The groups made it back just in the nick of time to kick off our sports camp at the Dryades YMCA. From 4-6 p.m. we fed off the extensive enthusiasm of six to 14-year olds while playing various soccer, volleyball and basketball games. The future All-Americans showed off their skills; a few showing genuine interest in playing at the collegiate level. We're looking forward to seeing how some of them develop throughout the week.

The iron chef on duty prepared us with a delicious taco meal before heading out on the town. We ventured to the French Quarter where we walked Bourbon Street and some of us ate beignets at Cafe Du Monde. Even on a Monday night, the historic sites and rich sounds of New Orleans were a rival of most cities, even good old Slippery Rock! ;o)

Shout out to: Everyone who purchased Cow Paddy Bingo tickets so we were able to make this trip possible!

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

Happy Cinco de Mayo!!  After last night's experience, we awoke, ate breakfast and received our VERY detailed directions on what was to be done today. Today we celebrated the holiday by continuing the work at Angel Food, Mr. Woodrow Jackson's house and started a new project at a different site in New Orleans, close to downtown.

Coach Thompson and two others went back to Angel Food and continued with their help handing out food to local families. At Mr. Woodrow's the main objective today was demolition! We tore out the back two rooms that were devastated by fire and were slowly falling off the rest of the house. It was hard to stay clean with drywall dust, shingles and boards flying from the home but we all managed to leave with no injuries this time! Tomorrow we return to tear down the rest of the back of the house and hope to start rebuilding the rooms lost.

The rest of the group was across town chipping away furiously at the bright pink paint on one house in preparation for a new coat of paint. We often found ourselves making our way to the power washer in hopes to catch some mist to cool us down in the very hot weather. Tomorrow we hope to return to start painting in hopes to have the house painted by Thursday.

Following our long day at the job sites we had our second day of sports camp, which was a challenge in itself! Once everyone settled each group was able to get to work on their sports and kids loved the fun and challenging games we had planned for them.

After dinner we had the opportunity to listen to Miss Jeanette Jackson, a Hurricane Katrina survivor who shared with us her story about life before and after Katrina. It was very interesting to hear her story and how her and her family were affected and able to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. We are looking forward to the rest of the week's adventures. Adios amigos!!

Shout out to: Everyone that helped out by making the Spaghetti Dinner for Dreams a success!