Five houses in five days. It still amazes Courtney Mlynar a bit.
“When you have (teams of) 30 workers right there, and they each have their own house, you get those houses done quickly,” she said. “And the people are glad. They don’t want to have to live in a FEMA trailer.”
Mlynar, a former resident of Lyndon and Emporia, has been an AmeriCorps volunteer in the Gulf area since January. And for several weeks, she’s been in Louisiana, helping people rebuild from the effects of Hurricane Katrina.
It’s not Mlynar’s first exposure to Katrina. Earlier this year, she and her fellow volunteers surveyed people in Hancock County, Miss., to see what needs they still had more than a year and a half after the hurricane struck. But that was different.
In Mississippi, Mlynar said, the hurricane hit, did its damage and left again. In Louisiana, the water stayed for seven days.
“In one hour, it went from three to five feet to 20 feet,” she said. “It covered everyone’s homes and stayed like that. It’s nasty in New Orleans, they have so much muck.”
And as AmeriCorps volunteers, Mlynar and her friends got to get right down in it.
AmeriCorps began in 1993 as a domestic Peace Corps, intended to give college-age Americans a chance to help their own country. Members are trained in first aid, CPR, disaster relief and a number of other skills, then sent where they’re needed. And since the fall of 2005, a lot of them have been needed around the Gulf Coast.
It’s not all dirty work — Mlynar found herself doing accounting for the team at one point. But that said, it’s definitely not for someone who’s afraid of getting a few calluses. In St. Bernard Parish, Mlynar’s group spent a lot of time putting in insulation or mudding sheet rock.
“We weren’t very good at it the first time,” she admitted ruefully. “But we’ve done it so many times now that we’re pros.”
While one group is working on insulation, another will be covering electrical work, or cabinetry, or plumbing. Suddenly, it doesn’t become impossible to see how the St. Bernard’s project can finish five houses a week.
While the AmeriCorps workers are a constant presence, other volunteers come and go and come again, as people find hours and days to give. At one point, the base of Camp Hope has had 900 volunteers working out of it.
“We’ve had a lot of spring break volunteers from colleges and high schools,” Mlynar said.
Mlynar herself, meanwhile, no sooner found herself on the job than she was shifted into another one. After visiting her family for Easter, she went back to Louisiana to be part of a Gulf liaison team. That means she’ll spend part of her time recruiting, part of her time working with the media, and part of the time boosting the morale of the other workers by planning some recreation for them.
That last is more important than you might think. Each day, volunteers get up at 6 a.m., organize and head out to the site by 7:30 a.m., head back at 6 p.m. after a full day’s work and often do an hour of physical training in the evening as well. Meals, showers and sleep occupy a lot of the remaining time.
‘When you’re a volunteer and you do that much work, it really kills you,” Mlynar said. “You have to have some breaks.”
It’s work that’s appreciated though. The volunteers have been greeted with smiles, good wishes and even food — in Mississippi, one lady brought a huge meal for the group each day for four days before the volunteers persuaded her they were stuffed.
“When you’re working hard, you say ‘Why am I doing this?’” Mlynar said. “But when you get a house down and see a family move in, and they’re crying because they don’t have to live in a trailer anymore — that’s when you know you’re doing the right thing.”
mlynarr (anonymous) says...
As my dad would say "YAHOO!"
April 24, 2007 at 6:56 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )