Day 1 and Day 2 of Presentation Service Trip to New Orleans
Tom and Kay from Peoria, IL. Crew leaders who have worked in the Standing Rock Reservation area. They donate their time from Nov-April of every year.
The Presentation volunteers waiting to be assigned work sites for the day.
Presentation volunteers
The two "burly men" we encountered at that New Orleans, LA airport.
Therese, Katie and Sr. Pegge after getting blessed by the Presentation Sisters.
The Presentation volunteers waiting to be assigned work sites for the day.
Presentation volunteers
The two "burly men" we encountered at that New Orleans, LA airport.
Therese, Katie and Sr. Pegge after getting blessed by the Presentation Sisters.
DAY ONE and DAY TWO
Presentation Sisters’ Service Trip to New Orleans, LA
SUNDAY, March 15, 2009: Sister Pegge Boehm, Katie Phillips from Trail City and Therese Perino from Aberdeen were blessed with “May the Blessing of the Lord be upon you” by many of the Sisters as we left Presentation Heights for Aberdeen Airport. Sr. Pegge’s brother, John, would be happy to hear that all three stopped at McDonalds for a coffee on their way to the airport. The flight from Aberdeen to Minneapolis to New Orleans was happily uneventful! (We’re glad we had that coffee earlier, the hot water didn’t work on the plane from Minneapolis to New Orleans!) It was the first time for all three of us to come to New Orleans. At the airport, we saw two burly men holding up a sign that read, “Welcome Finalists for The Millionaire Maker.” We took a picture, because we knew it would be the closest any of us would come to a million dollars! Sr. Mary Catherine from New Windsor, NY picked us up at the airport as we scrunched into the backseat with luggage and three others in a moderately sized SUV. We passed many areas still devastated by Katrina! We arrived at an apartment building – Mater Dolorosa - where we will “camp out” for the next week. There are 67 apartments in this complex. It used to be a school, and is renovated as handicapped accessible. It was flooded during Katrina, but has been since restored. There are 11 of us from all over the country – four (two youth, one Associate and one Presentation Sister) from Fargo, one from Dubuque, IA; three of us from Aberdeen; one Presentation Sister from San Francisco; one Presentation Sister from New Windsor; one from the international Union. We all enjoyed a piece of pizza for supper, then we received our orientation and everyone introduced themselves. We went to bed about 10pm.
MONDAY, March 16, 2009: Some of us didn’t do too well sleeping – a learning curve using cots. We made our bag lunches and headed off to receive our orientation from New Orleans Catholic Charities. By next week, they expect to pass a milestone – the 20,000th volunteer since Hurricane Katrina! They talked about their gratitude for all the youth – probably about 200 – from throughout the country: St. Louis, New Hampshire, Fordham, Mt.St. Mary in the East and then there was our group – Presentation Sisters and our friends. They told us that many residents received $40,000 to renovate their homes, however, the REAL cost actually came up to $100,000 and besides that, MANY, MANY got TOOK by the contractors! In fact, the house we worked in today shared a similar story. Miss Minnie told us the contractor absconded her money and her grandson’s money! Catholic Charities really wanted to help her because of what happened to her. We met her at her house this morning – Miss Minnie – and she was excited to tell us that she wanted to move in this week, however, the electricians still had to come to fix up the wiring, which was all mixed up in the renovation. She had new kinds of windows installed – you should be able to pull them out and clean them – however, they were closed shut – no way to clean them on both sides! Also, the copper tubing was stolen off of two air conditioners that were in the backyard, before they were installed. Also, someone came and stole all the copper tubing from underneath the house, so now she has plastic tubing. Many of these people are TRYING to reconstruct, but many times it is one step forward and two steps back, through no fault of their own. And to make it worse, the Louisiana state government, which is Republican, is refusing to accept Stimulus funds because they want to make a statement against President Obama. And you know who suffers with politics like that! Another lady likened the stealing, etc. to someone being stripped of their clothing, leaving them stark naked and vulnerable!
What did we do today? We were divided into two groups. Sr. Pegge and Therese were in the same group and Katie went another direction. Pegge and Therese painted, and cleaned up Miss Minnie’s house inside (good thing because it was raining all day!)
We’re all going to supper tonight at Sr. As I said above, she wants to move in this week and the contractors did such a shoddy job, so we spent a lot of the time, priming, painting and cleaning windows, bathrooms, kitchen. We can’t wait to see Miss Minnie see the transformation of her house! And we’re not done yet.
Katie went with another group of six volunteers to help clean up a house that was struck by Hurricane Katrina. Their duties consisted of painting, mudding and cleaning up around the house. They encountered a wonderful woman named Clara who told the group about her experiences with Hurricane Katrina. It was a truly touching experience.
Mary Lou Specha, a Dubuque Presentation Sister, who is the director of CAFÉ RECONCILE, a place youth learn how to cook, how to manage a business, how to comport themselves in a business environment. She came in 2005 for a service trip, liked it so much and moved here last June, 2008 to direct this program!!!
Presentation Sisters’ Service Trip to New Orleans, LA
SUNDAY, March 15, 2009: Sister Pegge Boehm, Katie Phillips from Trail City and Therese Perino from Aberdeen were blessed with “May the Blessing of the Lord be upon you” by many of the Sisters as we left Presentation Heights for Aberdeen Airport. Sr. Pegge’s brother, John, would be happy to hear that all three stopped at McDonalds for a coffee on their way to the airport. The flight from Aberdeen to Minneapolis to New Orleans was happily uneventful! (We’re glad we had that coffee earlier, the hot water didn’t work on the plane from Minneapolis to New Orleans!) It was the first time for all three of us to come to New Orleans. At the airport, we saw two burly men holding up a sign that read, “Welcome Finalists for The Millionaire Maker.” We took a picture, because we knew it would be the closest any of us would come to a million dollars! Sr. Mary Catherine from New Windsor, NY picked us up at the airport as we scrunched into the backseat with luggage and three others in a moderately sized SUV. We passed many areas still devastated by Katrina! We arrived at an apartment building – Mater Dolorosa - where we will “camp out” for the next week. There are 67 apartments in this complex. It used to be a school, and is renovated as handicapped accessible. It was flooded during Katrina, but has been since restored. There are 11 of us from all over the country – four (two youth, one Associate and one Presentation Sister) from Fargo, one from Dubuque, IA; three of us from Aberdeen; one Presentation Sister from San Francisco; one Presentation Sister from New Windsor; one from the international Union. We all enjoyed a piece of pizza for supper, then we received our orientation and everyone introduced themselves. We went to bed about 10pm.
MONDAY, March 16, 2009: Some of us didn’t do too well sleeping – a learning curve using cots. We made our bag lunches and headed off to receive our orientation from New Orleans Catholic Charities. By next week, they expect to pass a milestone – the 20,000th volunteer since Hurricane Katrina! They talked about their gratitude for all the youth – probably about 200 – from throughout the country: St. Louis, New Hampshire, Fordham, Mt.St. Mary in the East and then there was our group – Presentation Sisters and our friends. They told us that many residents received $40,000 to renovate their homes, however, the REAL cost actually came up to $100,000 and besides that, MANY, MANY got TOOK by the contractors! In fact, the house we worked in today shared a similar story. Miss Minnie told us the contractor absconded her money and her grandson’s money! Catholic Charities really wanted to help her because of what happened to her. We met her at her house this morning – Miss Minnie – and she was excited to tell us that she wanted to move in this week, however, the electricians still had to come to fix up the wiring, which was all mixed up in the renovation. She had new kinds of windows installed – you should be able to pull them out and clean them – however, they were closed shut – no way to clean them on both sides! Also, the copper tubing was stolen off of two air conditioners that were in the backyard, before they were installed. Also, someone came and stole all the copper tubing from underneath the house, so now she has plastic tubing. Many of these people are TRYING to reconstruct, but many times it is one step forward and two steps back, through no fault of their own. And to make it worse, the Louisiana state government, which is Republican, is refusing to accept Stimulus funds because they want to make a statement against President Obama. And you know who suffers with politics like that! Another lady likened the stealing, etc. to someone being stripped of their clothing, leaving them stark naked and vulnerable!
What did we do today? We were divided into two groups. Sr. Pegge and Therese were in the same group and Katie went another direction. Pegge and Therese painted, and cleaned up Miss Minnie’s house inside (good thing because it was raining all day!)
We’re all going to supper tonight at Sr. As I said above, she wants to move in this week and the contractors did such a shoddy job, so we spent a lot of the time, priming, painting and cleaning windows, bathrooms, kitchen. We can’t wait to see Miss Minnie see the transformation of her house! And we’re not done yet.
Katie went with another group of six volunteers to help clean up a house that was struck by Hurricane Katrina. Their duties consisted of painting, mudding and cleaning up around the house. They encountered a wonderful woman named Clara who told the group about her experiences with Hurricane Katrina. It was a truly touching experience.
Mary Lou Specha, a Dubuque Presentation Sister, who is the director of CAFÉ RECONCILE, a place youth learn how to cook, how to manage a business, how to comport themselves in a business environment. She came in 2005 for a service trip, liked it so much and moved here last June, 2008 to direct this program!!!
posted by Vocation Outreach at
6:56 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home