Tuscaloosa, Alabama in a Nut Shell

I haven't had internet access the past couple of weeks, so I apologize for the lack of updates...I will try to fill you all in on what I have been doing, but I might miss some things since it has been so long! My team and I headed to Tuscaloosa, Alabama to do relief work from the F5 tornado that destroyed Tuscaloosa and where we worked in Holt. My team was there along with 3 other AmeriCorps NCCC teams from the Vicksburg campus, so sometimes we got to work with them and other times we just worked with our own teams. For the most part, my team was stationed at the Holt Relief Center, located in the middle of the worst-hit community from the tornados. We were basically in an old car garage that was still standing, but had 2 sides blown off by wind. It served as a distribution center for the community and by the time we left Alabama it was actually the only distribution center still up and running. It started out as a small project run by a family from Talladega, Alabama, but grew every single day and the woman who started it, Lorinda, was interviewed by CNN, Times Magazine, and many more impressive news sources. They really appreciated our team helping out and gave us a lot of responsibility to head up different areas of the center, so Neva and I were in charge of preparing meals and serving people who may not have eaten in days. We worked with the Salvation Army, led by an awesome guy named Kevin, who was always optimistic, uplifting, funny and kind to us, while also expecting us to keep up the pace and work hard with little to no breaks during our 12 hour work days. It doesn't sound like hard work to stand in one spot and scoop food all day, but let me tell you...my feet and back were killing me at the end of the day! We got to interact with a lot of people who had lost everything in the tornado...some people came to us with literally only the clothes on their backs, so we would show them around, get them some new clothes, toiletries, water, food, shoes, and other essential items. All of the things at the distribution center were donated by amazingly generous people, other organizations, and businesses. We also had about 20 other volunteers work with us each day through Samaritan's Purse, and some people came as far as Miami, FL, Texas, and other places far away just to help out for a couple days. It is truly amazing to see how close a community can get after such destruction hits. I encountered so many thankful people for just the few items we were able to provide for them and was so amazed by how they could still smile, laugh, and be thankful when they had just lost so much.
I could go on and on, but I will save some stories for when I am back home and can tell you all in person!
My team is back in Vicksburg now, we got here last night and have today off to kinda settle back in and rest before we get working on potential flood relief type work here. I can't believe graduation is in only 10 days! I am so excited to be heading back home to Maine!