What do you get when you mix sailors, ball players, runners, fencers, soccer players, lax players, and golfers...?
That recipe above gets all mixed together to create one awesome service trip! The student athletes at Boston College came together on a 6 day service trip in Louisiana and Mississippi. The kids come from all different states to begin with, but they also each play different sports at BC. These athletes have difficult schedules due to practices and competition days, so there isn't much room left for extracurriculars. The athletic department at BC decided to give the athletes a chance to participate in community service, as something outside their sports agenda. The first service trip debut last Christmas break with a group of athletes participating in Habitat for Humanity in Stamford Connecticut. The group chosen this year had the amazing opportunity to help non-profit organizations in Popularville, Mississippi during the last week in the school's Christmas break, Jan 12-17th.
The student athletes got right to work cleaning, painting, and even lighting things on fire! Safely of course. The groups each took turns working in the office to help sort files of families hurt by Hurricane Katrina and also getting hands-on experience with the aftermath of it all. The families that were helped were so happy to see progress finally being made after all these years. It touched all the athletes to see how much even just a nice coat of paint can be to someone who had lost everything.
As a member of the BC sailing team, I received the opportunity to experience such a great expedition. I really didn't know what to expect going down there, but I knew what we were going to see wouldn't be the happiest things in the world. The houses were being slowly rebuilt everywhere we went. Towns, even though looked new, were new by fault, not by want. It was sad hearing the stories of others who had lived through the traumatic experience, but uplifting to know that they still wanted to rebuild their lives.
Four members of my sailing team went down there, each of us not knowing how it would look. A few of my teammates had even sailed in the Youth Champs that was held at Southern Yacht Club just some months after the storm. They were younger then and didn't really understand how much of an impact the Gulf coast had suffered. They didn't realize that sailing at Youth Champs was to represent how life still goes on. They told me how glad they were to come back and help in the place they had seen so devastated. It was definitely an eye opener for most who experienced the Gulf coast and we can only say it opened our eyes for the better.
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