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AmeriCorps is mold's biggest enemy
by Michael Newsom, www.sunherald.com
When AmeriCorps workers arrived, the mold left in South Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina must have seemed like a slimy creature from an old B movie - it spread quickly, left a wake of ruin and sometimes it just wouldn't die.
But among their accomplishments, AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps workers helped systematically make it recede into that big, black lagoon, using the techniques perfected after the storm by Hands On USA, another volunteer group, that worked beside them.
Some 650 workers on the Gulf Coast on Saturday took part in National and Global Youth Service Day, a worldwide community-service event that put more than a million helpers to work. AmeriCorps NCCC teams have been coming to Mississippi and Louisiana in rotations since September 2005.
Three months into her trip, Arielle Davis of Los Angeles works mostly as a tutor at Pass Road Elementary in Gulfport and Gorenflo Elementary in Biloxi. But she said removing the mold is sometimes the most rewarding of all her chores, especially when it's over.
"You can look at the house and say 'somebody can live here,'
" Davis said.
But the mold is pesky. It hides on the wall behind the dresser, or in the back of the closet, and if workers don't get every bit of it, it comes back. Fighting spores isn't for the faint of heart, Davis said, acknowledging it's the most physically challenging work she has taken on in her life.
Gutting homes, building picnic tables for parks and restoring family photos for the students she tutors can also be added to Davis' resumé.
"If you see a need, it is almost like it's your duty to get in there and see how you can help," she said. NCCC members perform just about every chore needed to help undo Katrina's damage. NCCC volunteers are between the ages of 18 and 24, and they are required to do at least 1,700 hours of work to complete the 10-month program. For their work they receive $4,725 to help repay school loans or to go toward college tuition.
To date they have logged more than 1 million hours on about 480 different projects on the Gulf Coast, according to a news release from the group. They can still be seen working from one end of South Mississippi to the other, and their biggest camp is at Beauvoir United Methodist Church in Biloxi.
In South Mississippi they held a scavenger hunt for children in Gulfport's Turkey Creek community, helped with opening day at the North Ball Field in Kiln and painted fire hydrants in Waveland, among other tasks.
In Bay St. Louis, Tristan Fryer helped prepare a foundation for a home. A native of San Jose, Calif., Fryer said the beauty of the shore in Bay St. Louis struck him, and he wouldn't mind retiring there. But at 19, he's a long way from putting down his tools for good.
"I believe we are doing a lot of good in the community," Fryer said.
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