Wayland to Waveland’s
‘Mission to Mississippi’
Day 1
OCT. 16, 2007 – WAVELAND, MA – Day 1
From Cindy Lombardo, W2W Co-chair
It is now 10:33 pm and I finally made it to my room and showered off the dirt and dust of Day 1. The plane arrived an hour early and Lyn Perry, Ann Muschette and I drove the BIG vans to the airport to pick up 27 workers. We needed an extra truck to carry the luggage. We drove to the site crossing the new bridge (over St. Louis Bay) and along the coast so eveyone could see the devastation. If we had taken the highway, they might have wondered why they were here.
We arrived at the site around noon. Immediately upon arriving, the men divided into teams and started to sort out the lumber. Lyn and Ann went twice to Walmart for supplies while I cleaned up the site, picked up water bottles and answered questions.
By the end of the day all 4 houses on Combel had the framing and the sub floor decking on. (Well, almost all.) We cleaned up the site and I gave "check in" instructions to everyone. We gave out T-shirts -- 3 per person. All finished by 6:20.
I had to return to the site in the dark with Lyn as she though she lost her wallet. (Turns out she had left her wallet in a Walmart bag in her room.) But, while searching in the dark, the neighbors across the street came by with a flashlight and helped us look. The neighbor's friend introduced himself and told me that his mom was a "Project Santa" recipient. (This was the first project in 2005 that W2W did to start building connections in Waveland.) Way cool. He was so appreciative. He is giving me the two-year-old thank you note that was returned to him for the wrong zip code. Russ Williams family? Anyone know or can look them up in the phone book? He will give me the note tomorrow.
Back at the hotel, Kathie and Cathy Wright arrived and life is good. I sat with Peter's crew and heard about their day at Melanie's. Another story for another day. I will send photos of day 1 tomorrow as I left the camera in the van. I am now going to bed as 5:45 comes early.
W2W is awesome and even though we are all tired, we are doing great things and we have a great crew. Lucky families.
Cindy
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