We wrapped up in Missouri, I got a cold, we drove back to Denver, I've slept for the last week... and well, that pretty much brings us up to date, right?! I guess I'll give a few more details :)
It seemed as though our two weeks in Missouri was the perfect amount of time for us to be there. We arrived with the goal of doing initial disaster response; we wanted to get the immediate needs taken care of. And as a team, with the community's support, we did just that. Homes that were un-insured or under-insured had immediate needs taken care of (i.e. taps on roofs) and construction debris was moved to public dumpsters the county was funding. The last few days there, we transitioned into a Long Term Recovery Committee (LTRC). A few community members took over the disaster response effort and will work to get the people affected by the tornadoes back on their feet. They will operate quite differently than we did with the initial response. Instead of matching up volunteers with immediate homeowner projects on a day by day basis, the LTRC will will work with individual homeowners to get their needs taken care of. The LTRC will work with large donations (Our VRC did not handle any money) to get homeowners necessary funding and materials to get them on their feet. In a sense, the LTRC will act as case workers for each homeowner. I know they will do a great job, too.
We left on Friday morning, and I woke up with a sore throat that progressed into a nice little cold by the time we arrived back in Denver after our two day trip. Of course, we arrived back in Denver on St. Patrick's day, so I couldn't just go to bed and get a good nights sleep! Laura, Melinda, and I got tickets to the Celtics/Nuggets game at the Pepsi Center and then we headed downtown for a green beer.
Melinda's a Celtics fan, so we cheered for them. They lost.
Monday rolled around and we had our one day of paperwork to do. Usually we have a whole 'transition week' with meetings and paperwork, but we were lucky and got it condensed down into one day. We debriefed and presented our Oklahoma project to the staff and then did a question/answer about disaster. Typically for debriefs we present with one other team to our unit leader and one other staff member. Well, people were pretty interested in what we had to say as we had just about the entire staff there and a lot of the office Team Leaders. Put a little bit of pressure on us, but we did just fine.
The rest of the week has been relaxing. I'll sum it up in pictures:
We shaved Amanda's head!! She raised money and shaved her head for the St. Baldrick's foundation which raises money for children with cancer. It's a St. Patrick's day thing, so we did it right when we got back to Denver. She looks good with a bald head!
Downtown Denver. Got a new book at the bookstore with Laura and Max, then headed to the park on a nice day to read.
Happy hour! 2 for 1 glasses of wine, sign me up.
And this is what i've spent the majority of my time doing. The weather has been beautiful, so I've spent some quality time on the hill behind campus reading and looking at the beautiful mountains. Can't complain.
And that brings me to now. Updating this blog with a tasty iced latte (thanks to the wonderful gift cards I received over Christmas, I'm still using them!).
I head for the airport at 5:30 am tomorrow morning. My first flight is to Dallas, and then I'm off to Jackson International where Jessie, my temporary TL for the round will pick me up and take me to Eudora, Arkansas to meet my new team. I'm a bit nervous, as I've never really talked to any of them, but I know it'll be just fine. By the time I get there I'll really only have a month and a half on project. I talked to Jessie the other day and she said I'm going to be in a pre-k classroom. Quite the change from prescribed burning every day to spending it with little kiddos. I'm not sure which will tire me out more, my bet is actually on the kids. I haven't started packing yet, I'll get there eventually.
By this time tomorrow I will have been in 8 states in the past 5 months. And will have lived in 4 of them. I'm getting good at the packing game!
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