Posting from Kari

Today we embarked our first real workday. At about 10:30 am, after our orientation, we left the camp and were off. The group split into two different crews and went to two different sites. My crew went to work on two different houses in Ocean Springs. I was really excited to start working considering we left Saint Paul on Saturday morning. I had some preconceived notions about the work we would be doing. We tore down sheetrock, removed nails from ceilings, and sweep up the scraps at the houses. We did this is order to prepare the houses for the sanitizing. This means spraying a bleach solution on the walls to prevent mold from forming again. Our group worked extremely well together and took orders from our team leader Ray. The weirdest thing about today was taking apart something that was once a family home. I came up with thoughts of who lived there, what they did for fun, and how this was their place in the world. Now it was an empty house without walls and no protection. I was emotional thinking about all the displaced families and we were only working on one house at the time. It feels so minor to work on one house but that is all we can do. We are hopeful for the future and the residents here are grateful for any help. Tomorrow we will continue our quest to rebuild, even if it is one house at a time.