Friday 10 June 2011

Day 37 Rest day in Pittsburgh

As you may know a couple of weeks ago there was a devastating tornado in Joplin Missouri that took over 150 lives and totally destroyed a huge part of the city. Today we are only 20 miles north of the disaster area and a couple of days ago Greg, Ellen, Kelly and myself responded to an advert for volunteers at the United Way Catholic relief centre in Joplin.

We received a positive response to do a 3 hour session at their emergency supply centre so we hired a car and drove down this morning. We were a little apprehensive az the consensus of other opinion was that Joplin had been inundated with volunteers and that we would be more of a hindrance than a help. Neverthelless we decided to go and assess the situation as we felt that the charity would have declined our applications  had this been the case.

It turned out that our fears were unfounded, we were warmly received and  each of us did 3 hours of useful work helping with the distribution of supplies to families  who had lost their homes.

It was a very humbling experience but at the same time after seeing the devaztation here it made me feel very proud to be raising money for Shelterbox and even more determined to achieve my sponsorship target.












3 comments:

  1. What a mess Joplin is in. Well done to you and your fellow riders for volunteering to help with the recovery effort.

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  2. It brings a tear to see the devestation and to consider the impact on the lives of so many people. It warms the heart to think of the gracious and unselfish volunteers who have stepped in to lend a hand.

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  3. what a mess - looks like the pictures of the Japanese tsunami. Well done to all of you for helping out.

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