Day 3 - The Ohio Seven

With all the people from Youth in Action, there was a larger crowd in line for breakfast, and the morning devotional had to be moved outside to accommodate the crowd. This was almost unreal to me. During the first trip, there had been about 400 volunteers at Hilltop Rescue, the place was packed, but everybody fit into one room for devotional. During the second trip, there were at least 50 volunteers, but not more than 75.

The group I was with got to return to do more mudding at the same house as yesterday. We stopped at the office of the St. Bernard Project in the morning for updates, and we found out that our group had been given a name: The Ohio Seven. I don't know if any of the other groups got named by the home owners they were helping out. We got to return to see if we could finish the job, and there were things that had been left undone the day before that we would get back to. Everybody was excited, and we hoped we might finish the first coating of mud this time around.

On the way to the house, we stopped at Home Depot in Chalmette and picked up a lock for the front door of the house we were working on. At the house, the group leader worked to install the lock while the rest of us got our troughs of mud and went back to work.

I got to return to what I called "the worst closet mudding job in the house," something I called the closet I was working on yesterday. However, there was a "worst closet" and it wasn't the one I was in. There was a worse one adjoining the master bathroom. I could've stood inside it, but only if I squeezed into it sideways and then stayed still with my arms at my sides.

That gave me a good dose of perspective as I worked to finish the closet I started yesterday. I had to do the tape on the ceiling and in the corners around the sides of the ceiling.

Before we had the chance to break out the lunch we packed, the home owner's pizza arrived. She also let us have pop from a refrigerator behind the house. She also offered to let us use the bathroom in her FEMA trailer.

We went back to work in the afternoon, but we did not work for as long, because we had planned to go to New Orleans, see some of the sights, and eat dinner in town.