Bunny [the friend formerly known as PG] has updated me on her ride across America.

We are currently in Riggins, ID for the night. We’re taking an easy day tomorrow-about 27 miles into Whitebird. Then the next day will be a climb up to Grangeville. We’ll be in Missoula August 2nd or 3rd. Then we’ll be two states completed. I picked up a book for 25 cents at a library in Council, ID so that is a great activity to decompress after the day.

Will you include in your blog our bike trip? That will help us with publicity. I understand if you don’t want to, though.

You can track our progress whenever we can update our website. Today we have internet, but not access to certain sites, including our website. Ride to Rebuild We haven’t been able to update it since Baker City, OR. We have travelled about 660 miles. Our goal is to raise $2,500 for Habitat for Humanity in Jackson, MS. The website explains it more. Please don’t donate, as you’ve already supported the trip enough. I am sure that out of all the people that read your blog, we may get more. People at Fisher are writing press releases for me, so keep an eye on the local newpapers. I haven’t talked with her yet to provide details, so it won’t be within the next few days.

So many Americans are still in need from the destruction of last summer. All we read about these days in the national news are the criminals and the acts of fraud. There are hundreds of thousands of hard-working Americans still trying to rebuild their lives and because it isn’t a negative story, it doesn’t get printed.

Bunny described her work with Americorps in the Gulf in an article that I was lucky enough to get permission to reprint.

It’s hot and dry across the northwest, and these young people are riding to raise $2,500 for Habitat for Humanity in the Mississippi Gulf. I’d like to think that the blogging community could help that happen. Or, just maybe, do a whole lot better.

We’re talking about needy Americans, here, folks. I’m going to run this post off and on. Let’s help the people of Mississippi, and give these youngsters a pat on the back for their efforts.

Bunny [the friend formerly known as PG] has updated me on her ride across America.

We are currently in Riggins, ID for the night. We’re taking an easy day tomorrow-about 27 miles into Whitebird. Then the next day will be a climb up to Grangeville. We’ll be in Missoula August 2nd or 3rd. Then we’ll be two states completed. I picked up a book for 25 cents at a library in Council, ID so that is a great activity to decompress after the day.

Will you include in your blog our bike trip? That will help us with publicity. I understand if you don’t want to, though.

You can track our progress whenever we can update our website. Today we have internet, but not access to certain sites, including our website. Ride to Rebuild We haven’t been able to update it since Baker City, OR. We have travelled about 660 miles. Our goal is to raise $2,500 for Habitat for Humanity in Jackson, MS. The website explains it more. Please don’t donate, as you’ve already supported the trip enough. I am sure that out of all the people that read your blog, we may get more. People at Fisher are writing press releases for me, so keep an eye on the local newpapers. I haven’t talked with her yet to provide details, so it won’t be within the next few days.

So many Americans are still in need from the destruction of last summer. All we read about these days in the national news are the criminals and the acts of fraud. There are hundreds of thousands of hard-working Americans still trying to rebuild their lives and because it isn’t a negative story, it doesn’t get printed.

Bunny described her work with Americorps in the Gulf in an article that I was lucky enough to get permission to reprint.

It’s hot and dry across the northwest, and these young people are riding to raise $2,500 for Habitat for Humanity in the Mississippi Gulf. I’d like to think that the blogging community could help that happen. Or, just maybe, do a whole lot better.

We’re talking about needy Americans, here, folks. I’m going to run this post off and on. Let’s help the people of Mississippi, and give these youngsters a pat on the back for their efforts.

My friend, who I have called “PG” for so long on this blog, was the subject of a long piece in the Fall 2006 St. John Fisher College alumni magazine, Collegium. They have graciously given me permission to reprint the article, and her real name is so disclosed. She gave me permission to use her name long ago but I chose to give her a measure of privacy on the net.

Like many graduating seniors, Bunny Dugo ‘05 wasn’t entirely sure what her future would hold for her. She had committed to ten months of service with AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps (AmeriCorps NCCC), but Bunny didn’t know which U.S. communities she would be helping.

Her answer came when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. AmeriCorps NCCC was among the first to respond to survivors’ needs with over 50% of its members deployed to the Gulf Region. There, Bunny and fellow members worked on disaster relief, education, environmental projects, and public safety in partnership with state and local agencies.

Her first assignment was on a cruise ship that FEMA contracted as a shelter for hurricane survivors. Through November and December, the volunteers lived and worked in the shelter coordinating a GED preparatory program, an immediate needs distribution center, teen and pre-teen centers, a mail room and social programs for adults and children. “I personally focused the majority of my efforts in the Special Needs Rooms,” said Bunny. There she led the acquisition, organization, and distribution of clothes, hygiene items, coats, work gear, and baby supplies. In her efforts Bunny enlisted the help of the entire Fisher campus through coordination with Sally Vaughan, Director of the St. John Fisher College Service Scholars Program.

In March her second Gulf Coast assignment took her from Camp Algiers – a FEMA tent city for volunteers and residents – to Ocean Springs, Mississippi. There, AmeriCorps NCCC performed a bit of everything from volunteer coordination to mucking out homes and dry walling structures.”

Bunny says that she will never forget what she saw during her first assignment at the end of 2005. “Vans were knocked through brick houses; homes were moved completely off foundations; clothes were strewn about in trees; televisions were floating in the water; houses (when not completely flattened) were missing their front walls. It was as though we were looking into doll houses… Even large casino barges washed ashore, one blocking the entire expanse of highway 90.”

She feels that many areas are seeing improvement. “The central part of New Orleans is bustling. I could no longer see the black line that had previously painted the buildings in the city, indicating the water level when Katrina hit,” she noted. “Only about a quarter of the houses just east of New Orleans still had blue tarp roofs.”

IIn Mississippi Bunny was pleased to see that more businesses were operational in March than in December. “Before we couldn’t find an open business with a restroom – no McDonald’s, nothing. We used what we think was the only bathroom in the area, a port-a-potty in a wrecked Wal-Mart lot. This time around we stopped in a clean, fully functioning Wendy’s restaurant.”

Unfortunately, there are some areas that haven’t seen great improvement. “Little has been done to repair the houses in the poorer neighborhoods or rebuild the 9th ward, where the devastation was most immense. Most of the news coverage, financial assistance, and volunteers went to New Orleans, leaving the 9th ward and Southern Mississippi still devastated.” The bridge from Gulfport to Ocean Springs remains a symbol of the power of Hurricane Katrina. “It collapsed into slabs piled like dominoes.” As Bunny says, “Large strides have been made, yet there is much more to be done.”

Understanding the plight of the region is a challenge. “I feel connected, yet distant, because I will never truly understand what it was like to endure Katrina and its consequences.”

She has found inspiration in the countless stories told to her by residents. “I met an inspiring family in a shelter in Mississippi. They helped me coordinate the needs center, and the eleven year old daughter initiated a 250 mile trail ride fundraiser to benefit the library in Gulfport. They barely survived the storm their in Jackson, MS home, which is inland and, they thought, beyond the reach of the hurricane. The mother and daughter huddled under a mattress in a bathtub while the father secured the barn and weathered the storm there.” Another family Bunny met in December had been living in the back of a semi tractor trailer because they were unable to find shelter elsewhere. “I am continually amazed at the strength of the human spirit,” Bunny noted.

Regardless of what may come after her last trip with AmeriCorps NCCC in July 2006, it is certain that in the months since Katrina she has been able to touch the lives of many of its victims, and they, in turn have touched her life.

The Pretty Girl [PG] called. She’s on her way back to Sacramento from service in America’s Gulf Coast. Her commitment ends July 12, and she says that she has lots of stuff to tell me about hurrican recovery efforts.

They are driving back, through the Southwest and should be at their home base today sometime.

After July 13 a group of them plan to bike back to America’s North Shore, via the northern states to avoid some of the heat.

She sounds good.

PG writes:

I was scheduled to leave for New Orleans this morning, but they cancelled our project two days ago because of safety concerns. It turns out we were to be doing debris removal alongside a highway and semi trucks are still launching debris (2x4s, garbage, etc) into the area we would be working in. A hard hat wouldn’t really stand up against a 2×4 at 60miles an hour.

There were two teams from other campus regions down there on the project already. There was an “accident” with one of the teams, so all XXXXX teams were pulled from that project. XXXXX staff tried to find us another project in New Orleans, but we are headed to Mississippi again instead.

I actually prefer to work in Mississippi because most of the towns in Mississippi were completely demolished by Hurricane Katrina, yet all of the attention and most of the assistance is going to New Orleans. We will be performing various services while there, including case management, volunteer coordination, drywalling, other construction, food preparation, and managing distribution centers. We will be on the MS shoreline until May 12th, then we will move to another city along the Gulf Coast for the rest of XXXXX.