FYI II

Last week we said goodbye to Arkansas, Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio and Texas. This week we said hello to Colorado, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas. This will be my first week here without a volunteer from Minnesota. Those folks are serious about their volunteering! (On a silly note: We had a gal from Savanna UMC in Illinois last week whose name was Virginia. For some reason I had a hard time remembering if she was Savanna from Virginia or Virginia from Illinois. I got so I just called her Savanna. We laughed a lot.) It is always hard to say farewell on Friday. The parking lot empties at midday and stays empty till mid afternoon on Sunday when it fills again. Saturday is restful, but subdued. Sunday evening's Welcome and Information meeting brings new energy and enthusiasm. This week we have around sixty volunteers. USB is considered full at forty-five to sixty-five.

Friday, one of our major water heaters in Zook Hall died. Zook Hall is the USB dorm. Peck Hall is all apartments (eight, including two occupied by full-time staff). There are twelve RV hookups which wrap around the residence/admin/bayou side of the campus. Anyhow, the dead water heater will hopefully be replaced on Monday, tomorrow. In the meantime, Jan, our long term volunteer hostess, said the faucets will all yield, if not necessarily hot, at least fresh, safe water, which is more than can be said in most of the world. Sobering.

The reason USB turned out to be such a good base for relief work during Hurricane Andrew in the 90s, then again during Katrina and Rita, is that it is fifteen feet above sea level. That is considered higher ground in these parts.

Jerry, a long term volunteer from Colorado, says one out of five homes in Baldwin has been worked on by USB volunteers.