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Looking for an amazing experience this spring break? How about an experience that will be fun, with your friends, warm (what's spring break without a little sun?), and one that will give back to a community in need?

Hurricane Katrina wrecked havoc four years ago this month - and much work continues to remain - YOU CAN HELP! Livingston CARES is a non-profit organization that takes work trips to Mississippi to help out with Katrina relief. We help rebuild homes and do repair work on local community projects - such as greenhouses, schools, and community centers.

2010 Trip Dates are...

Sunday, January 3 to Saturday, January 9
Sunday February, 14 to Saturday, February 20
March ‘10 Alternative Spring Break: Saturday, March 13 to Saturday, March 20
Sunday, May 16 to Saturday, May 22

For more information about Livingston CARES, check out our website http://livingstoncares.geneseo.edu/.

Want to know more?

ATTEND AN INTEREST MEETING

Tuesday September 29th at 7 p.m. - Union 322

Spots fill up fast!

Want to get a head start on your paperwork now?

Visit http://livingstoncares.geneseo.edu/Registration.html to print out forms!

Feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions by e-mail (rogersk@geneseo.edu), by phone (585-245-5139), or stop by my office located in the MacVittie College Union in room 353. You can also contact Marissa Evarts at mae6@geneseo.edu.

See you there!

Thanks from Camp Victor !

Again, another great week of service here at Camp Victor and a real blessing to have been able to host your team. I had a blast with your volunteers last week. I was able to work on site with them and also go to a bonfire on Thursday night with them as well. The kids from SUNY Geneseo brought enough energy and enthusiasm for the whole camp. It made the week really enjoyable and I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you.

I know they worked very hard on site and I heard many of the construction supervisors saying that they wish your teams where back down here this week because they miss the energy and hard work attitude. It's really nice when two organizations can work together to meet the needs of volunteers in different ways. I'm glad we've been able to house your teams and EBCC has done a great job at providing good work projects. A success all around. (Even more successful when you guys bring awesome volunteers!)

Please pass along my thanks to everyone from last week's team so I have a chance to tell them how great they were and how much we miss them! If any of them are interested in keeping in touch with the camp I can add them to the email newsletter list. Keep spreading the word
and blessings again for supporting our mission and helping the Gulf Coast continue to rebuild.

Thursday- Day 4

We've been enjoying some wonderful weather here in Biloxi. It's been about 75 degrees and sunny.

Here's what our groups have accomplished today:

Lea and Lwam: Demolition continues. We arrived to the site to find that a city dump truck was emptying our full dumpster. With this, we were able to continue working. They hope to have the whole house demolished by Friday.

Mark, Alyssa: Sheetrocking, drywall, and carpenty.

Steven, Jarrod and Kaelyn: Second coat of paint was applied. Finished some touch-ups on the walls. Dusted and varnished plywood boards for the ceiling. These teams were also fortunate to have pizza given to them by their homeowner who spent lunch with us. She shared her story of her experience during the storm-- she spent 8 hours in her attic with water constantly rising. She was able to save nothing from her house and lives in a Mima trailer behind her house.

The big highlight of today was seeing a house dedication. It was one of the houses that Livingston CARES worked on in January. The family was there and thanked all the volunteers for their support of Biloxi's rebuilding. They provided food and let us walk through their BEAUTIFUL home. For those of you in January, I will definitely send pictures! It was really important for us to see that our work DOES matter and that we are able to impact the lives of others.

We also went to a bonfire on the Gulf of Mexico beach. We'll miss this when we're back in New York!

Wednesday!

We're finally getting into the swing of things. Our day at Camp Victor starts at 6AM with waking up and breakfast at 650. We make our lunch each day before we leave for the work sites at 7:40. Camp Victor has been extremely busy this week. It's filled to capacity at 200, with an additional 100 volunteers using their facilities to shower and eat each day. It's good to see so many people dedicated to serving Southern Mississippi!

Here's what our groups have been up to:

Kaelyn, Steven, and Jarrod: finished priming and texturizing the house. We did our first coat of paint on the house

Mark and Alyssa's team: Installed drywall, and did some carpentry

Lea and Lwam's team: More demolition. Their work was temporarily put on hold due to a full dumpster (with no funds to remove the debris)

Wednesday night we went out to the Shed (a Livingston CARES tradition!) They specialize in BBQ and it's a great place to hang out.

We're halfway there!

Tuesday!

Hi Everyone! We are well on our way to getting a lot done this week. All of the volunteers are eager to pitch in and lend a hand whenever they're asked & have really learned lots of skills: (drywalling, mudding, measuring & cutting, tearing a house down, and much more). I'm so proud of everyone!

Here's an update on our progress:


Mark's Team: Finished priming, tore out carpet, painted shelves, doors, closets. Working on cleaning and caulking the siding. Replacing some sheetrock

Alyssa's Team: Installation of blinds, cleaning up the house

Lea's and Lwam's Team: Demolition Derby in Progress! Gutting an entire house, removing materials, stripped porches, floors

Steven's, Kaelyn's, and Jarrod's Team: Painting exterior of house, more joint compounding & mudding

We've also had some fun along the way with playing board games, watching a documentary about Hurricane Katrina, and meeting new friends.

Plan's for the Week:
Wednesday- Dinner at the Shed
Thursday- House dedication @ 5:00, ice cream
Friday- packing up & saying goodbye

First Day of Work!

Well, we have Internet now at Camp Victor (hooray!) Today, we started out our day with packing lunches and coolers of water and heading over to the East Biloxi Coordination Center to get a brief orientation and get our assignments for the week.

Our assignments are:

Steven, Kaelyn, and Jordan's team: working on sheetrocking, mudding, and sanding a house

Alyssa's team: working on a house that is nearly completed, finsihing the floorboard trim, some extra painting, installing handicapable guardrails in a bathroom

Mark's team: working on scaffolding, roofing, and priming the inside of the house

Lwam and Lea's team: demolition derby! they are tearing down a 2 story house this week (lots of sledge-hammering and hauling away debris)

Some volunteers chose to go out tonight to the Beau Rivage and Hard Rock Casino. It was a good time!

We're ready to rest up for tomorrow & look forward to getting a lot done!

What a Long Day!

We arrived here safely at 7AM on Sunday morning. The Internet is down at Camp Victor, but we will do our best to let you know what is going on. Today some of us went to a Baptist church service, while others caught up on sleep and played games.

In the afternoon, we walked to the Gulf of Mexico beach and played frisbee and walked on the beach. We then took a driving tour of Biloxi and saw the Hurricane Katrina Memorial. We had orientations at Camp Victor and did some "get to know you" games.

We're excited to start our workday tomorrow!

The 14th Trip to Mississippi!

Our 14th trip to Mississippi leaves tomorrow morning, Saturday, March 14th for Biloxi, Mississippi! We have 55 people in all, 52 college students and 3 SUNY Geneseo staff/faculty.

We're leaving at 8:30 A.M. from the SUNY Geneseo College Union and 24 hours later, we will be in Camp Victor. Right now, we have stops planned in Ohio and Tennessee to change drivers. Once we're in Biloxi on Sunday, we plan to spend some time on the beach and do a driving tour of the Biloxi/Gulfport area.

Work starts Monday morning at the East Biloxi Center with an orientation and then it's off to work! We have 8 wonderful team captains and Amanda, Marissa, and Elise as our coordinators for this trip.

We're all a little nervous, but very excited to meet new friends and do some amazing work together!

We're Moving Right Along!

Whew! We are in the swing of things now! We've spent three solid days working on our projects and I know we're making progress.

Here's what's happened in the last few days:

On Tuesday, Phil and Krup's group did a lot more mudding, sanding, and joint compounding. Krup, Laura, and Jerry installed sheetrock into the bathrooms. We are so fortunate to have a great foreman instruct us. Bridget and I installed some metal pieces in corners using a power drill (definitely another first for me). Midday we breaked for lunch at a park and met up with Tom and Sally's group. On Tuesday night, Camp Victor shows a documentary made by WLOX that traces the progression of the storm, shows before and after, and the area in its initial stages of devestation. It is hard for a lot of us to imagine water that reached the ceiling!

Wednesday began with slightly cooler weather than we were used to! Phil and Krup's groups began finishing touches on the mudding and joint compounding. We were taught how to "float" the joints and mud the corners. It's not an easy process, but we found it works well with teamwork. We stopped work around 10:30 to go visit Sally and Tom's group. They are well on their way in their house.

We then drove to Woolmarket, about 1/2 hour away, to go to a Senior Center in Harrison County. Livingston CARES has made a ten year commitment to the people of Harrison County to help them rebuild their homes and communities. We were joined by Nick Mazza, Livingston County Administrator, and Cynthia Oswald, President of the Livingston County Chamber of Commerce. Cynthia was very instrumental in creating our relationship with Harrison County shortly after the storm occured. We ate a wonderful lunch of smoked chicken, seafood gumbo, lima beans, and okra salad. Then, we went to the Woolmarket Fields to dedicate a flagpole. We brought a flag of both Livingston County and New York State. It was a great way to celebrate our long-term commitment to this area. We then returned to work- and had a great rest of the day!

Our First Day!

Our group was split up today into 2 groups. Team C and A worked on 1 house and Team B and D worked on another. Here's what they had to say!

Today we got our assignments and split up into two groups. My group went to a house owned by a woman who's son was going to be the sixth generation of people in his family to live there. They both stopped by in the afternoon and it was really inspirational to actually be able to see the people whose house we are helping to improve. The house had been flooded and was pretty much gutted. Our group was working alongside two very helpful contractors who showed us the ropes. We did things like put up drywall, sanded sheet rock, took apart and assembled vinyl siding.
-Team C!


Today was our first day of work and what an improvement over last year! Our supervisor was both knowledgeable and helpful >he explained what we needed to do and boy did we do it. There was mudding,sanding and drywalling all going on at the same time. We got a great deal accomplished on our first day! We also got meet the family we were helping out. A young couple with a young daughter anxiously awaiting the day they would be moving in! We all feel good about what we have done and are anxious to do more!

Team D

Welcome to Biloxi!

Wow, what a day it has been! After some much needed rest, we started our morning off Southern-style with breakfast at the Waffle House (Denny's for others). We then drove to downtown Biloxi to see what the area looked like.

We saw the memorial to Hurricane Katrina, full of personal belongings from the storm. For myself and others in the group, it was incomprehensible to imagine the huge wall of water surging into buildings. Evidence of the destruction is evident-- an Exxon sign with no gas station, or stairs that lead to a once-present foundation. FEMA trailers are still there. Throughout downtown Biloxi, progress is evident as well- casinos have rebuilt, and houses are up. We drove through Lee Street and saw Yankie Stadium where previous Livingston CARES work groups have stayed. Infamous "Xs" on the wall are there, indicating when the house was inspected, by whom, and how many deceased where there.

From Biloxi, we drove to Walmart to get some supplies for our stay. After that, we drove to the Gulf of Mexico (about a 2 mile walk from Camp Victor) and spent the afternoon walking and wading in the mostly warm water. I can say that is a first- to wade in the water in January!

After some more relaxation, we headed out to The Shed, a famous BBQ place that many Livingston CARES volunteers have gone to. The food was amazing! We saw a magician and enjoyed relaxing outside talking. For the evening, we had an orientation at Camp Victor with the other groups staying here. There will be roughly 200 people here (including church groups from Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as well as Habitat for Humanity).

We were fortunate to hear Suzie's story tonight about her experience in Hurricane Katrina. A life-long resident of Ocean Springs, her church acted as a Red Cross shelter after the Hurricane. Those displaced stayed at there for many months. It's been a long road for residents here, and promises to provide more challenges as we move farther away from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Suzie also mentioned that FEMA plans to remove its trailers by March 1st and remove the Katrina cottages (semi-permanent housing).

Tomorrow we will begin our work in East Biloxi. We're unsure of the work yet, but anxious to begin!

We're finally here!

Whew. That's all that we can say after a very long day of traveling. For most of us, our day started by arriving at the Rochester airport at 4:00 A.M. After a de-icing of the plane, we were able to make it to Atlanta on-time. Our 3 volunteers from the New York City area joined us at the Atlanta airport. We had a 3 hour layover in Atlanta before making our connecting flight to New Orleans.

Arriving in New Orleans was surreal. I couldn't believe after all of our planning, packing, and long day of travel, we were here. After getting our rental cars, we drove to Jackson Square in the French Quarter in New Orleans. On our way, we passed the Superdome, where many displaced homeowners spent anxious days after Hurricane Katrina hit.

Once in Jackson Square, our huge group of 25 split off into smaller groups, and wandered about the city. I went to Bourbon Street, saw amazing street performers (jazz, zydeco, tap) and took in the amazingly vibrant environment. Bourbon Street is the area that is famous for Mardi Grad celebrations. We ate real jambalya (sausage, chicken, creole seasonings, and shrimp). MMMM!

We then headed over to Riverwalk, which is on the Mississippi River. It began to rain a little, but that didn't deter us from going to Cafe du Monde to get some wonderful pastry/donuts! After getting to our cars, we began our long trek in pouring rain to Ocean Springs (1 1/2 hours) Mississippi where we will be staying. I think everyone is very excited to be here (finally!) and to be getting a good night's rest.

Tomorrow we will sight-see around the area. I'm happy that we made it safely and that we will beginning what promises to be a wonderful week!

East Biloxi

Here's some links about where we'll be/where we are staying:

East Biloxi Coordination, Relief and Redevelopment Agency (EBCRRA)--- this is the group that will provide us with work:
http://oprahsangelnetwork.org/stories/222-divine-appointments-help-rebuild-community

Camp Victor (where we are staying):
http://campvictor.org/

Happy Reading!

Leavin' on a Jet Plane

All my bags are packed... I'm ready to go

In less than 8 hours, the Livingston CARES January trip will be leaving the Rochester, NY airport. We'll be in New Orleans around 1:30 P.M. We plan to do some sightseeing in New Orleans before heading to Camp Victor in Mississippi.

Here's hoping this is a great trip!