Hi!
What a week or so since I last updated! After making some serious progress in and around the Hoboken, NJ community last week, I made my way out to Long Island to team up with my pal Starbuck to lead volunteers on a few job sites out here. He has legitimate experience of leading disaster relief teams in the field, and I have been doing my best to soak up as much of his knowledge as I can. I have been using what I feel to be some of my best leadership skills and combining them with what I see him doing that works well. I think we have a pretty good thing going between us and it has been exciting to see how productive our volunteers have been. People of all ages are on the ground with us doing the dirty work. Debris removal, gutting homes, pulling up floors etc. They really deserve a round of applause.
As of today, I will be living out on Long Island. Nechama is undertaking projects in Baldwin, Long Beach, and starting on Tuesday, The Rockaways. These areas received the absolute worst of what Hurricane Sandy left behind. That said, there is no shortage of work to be done. Today, we got off to a great start and tackled an absolutely destroyed home directly abutting the ocean in Long Beach. I cannot even begin to describe the condition of this place. Terribly sad. Anyways, there is plenty of work to do out here and we look forward to digging right in.
I hope you all are doing well. I must be getting to bed. Sleeping in a library tonight. Kind of crazy to think about considering libraries/books scared me until I was about 25.
Be good.
Mark/Chops
PS... NewJersey.com ran a nice little piece on Nechama. I didn't deserve the press, but it was nice that some light was shed on Nechama. These guys are doing some wonderful work down here. I consider myself to be very lucky that they have kept me around this long!
also, Nechama's website
 |
| STARBUCK AND ISABELLE, FAR RIGHT, AND MYSELF AFTER A DAY OF TRAINING VOLUNTEERS FROM MANHATTAN. |
 |
| HANK, A VOLUNTEER FROM CANADA SHOWED UP WITH THIS JUMPSUIT |
 |
| STARBUCK HITTING THE SWEETSPOT WITH A PLUMBER'S WRENCH! |
 |
| THE OWNER OF THE SUIT, HANK FROM CANADA. IS THIS SUIT WHAT HARRY AND LLOYD WORE IN DUMB AND DUMBER? OR USA'S OFFICIAL OUTFIT FROM THE '92 WINTER OLYMPICS IN LILIHAMMER? |
 |
| VIEW FROM THE CAR AFTER A LONG PRODUCTIVE DAY OUT ON LONG ISLAND |
 |
| NY GIANTS QUARTERBACK ELI MANNING VISITING ONE OF NECHAMA'S WORK SITES IN HOBOKEN, NJ. AS I SHOOK HIS HAND, I SAID "GO PATRIOTS!" BILL AND DAN REPRESENTING NECHAMA! |
 |
| A LOCAL PUBLICATION DECIDED TO PUT MY HOMELESS LOOKING MUG ON THE COVER... GRRR. |
No comments:
Post a Comment