This reflection is by Jodi Bennin, a freshman from Howards Grove, Wis.
There are many things I’ll remember about Biloxi, but the main two are our first drive along Highway 90 and the appreciation of the people.
Highway 90 runs along the beach in Biloxi. On one side of the highway was the Gulf and the beach. There was debris jutting out of the water and bulldozers pushing wreckage into piles. On the opposite side of the highway, there had once been a stately row of homes, apartments, and businesses. What we saw was an area littered with rubble and broken trees. At best, at least the first level of a building had been gutted and reduced to a skeleton. At worst, a bare lot was all that remained. The first drive down Highway 90 gave us a better idea of why so much help is needed in areas stricken by the storm.
The other thing I’ll always remember was the people and how they went out of their way to thank us. We received thank you certificates from a Boy Scout camp we helped clean up. A random woman ordered our group a thank-you cake. A lady cooked lunch for volunteers working on her house and the house next door. One Biloxian took her volunteer team out to eat; another ordered all her volunteers a book about the storm in order to express her thanks. Yet another woman came up to Father Tom in the supermarket and inquired if he was buying food for volunteers. When he said yes, she gave him $142 for groceries. The people that we encountered had lost so much in the hurricane, yet they always did what they could do to say thank you. It was a truly unforgettable experience.
