Monday, June 16, 2014

Day 1 @ Rebuild Joplin

We had a meeting at 8:15 @ Rebuild Joplin today.  As part of our orientation, we met the staff, watched a storm chaser video taken of the tornado, and heard lots of stories of both heartache, restoration and faith.

There is one wall at the office with the words 'Waiting' and underneath were the pictures of individuals and families to which homes are being worked on right now. 

There is another wall at the office with pictures of 'Happy' families that Rebuild Joplin has helped and have moved back into their homes.  Fortunately that wall is much larger.

7500 homes were damaged, 4000 homes were destroyed. In a city about the size of West Des Moines.

The two staff at Rebuild Joplin that oriented us, are high school graduates from Joplin, some staff are back in Joplin as part of Americore. Additionally, there was a lone volunteer named James whom they put with our group. He too is a high school graduate of Joplin and in fact was at his graduation ceremony the day of the tornado. Fortunately the ceremony was at the college versus the high school, as the high school was hit by the tornado. James is now a Junior at Purdue, but helping Joplin. As was a great team from Iowa.

Jo T



                                              


                                                
                                  The tornado path and the major impacts, such as the hospital


                                          The families that Rebuild Joplin has helped.


                                The families that are having their homes rebuilt or restored now

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