Smart Mob - Stephanie Dulany

On October 24 2011, me and around 150 other students met on a bus around 1:00 in the afternoon and left for Joplin. I think that most of us were a bit nervous for the work we were about to do, and it seemed that none of us knew what to expect when we were down there working. Some had not even seen Joplin after the horrible tornados, and this was my first time as well seeing the damage done to the city of Joplin. After driving through the worst, damaged part of Joplin, we arrived at the park site where we were going to lay sod. The scene was pretty bare, with some stone walls built on a mass of just dirt on the ground. We were going to fill the entire dirt plot with sod, and it seemed like a big job. However, once we started working, we realized just how awesome it was to have had 150 volunteers helping with this cause because the work got done faster than anyone thought. We had laid sod for about an hour and a half and we were done. After that, we moved up to the playground where other volunteers were working, and we helped to rake, shovel, and lay sod there as well. Michael from The Extreme Makeover met us there and got some really good filming shots for the show of the work that we had done. After all of our work was done, we were able to actually walk to the row of 7 houses that were being built for the show and see the progress made. I began the trip wondering how anyone could accomplish building 7 houses in a week, but after seeing how many volunteers there were, the job was obviously going to be done in time. The best thing I took away from this experience was knowing just how important every person that volunteers is. If no one helps with the volunteering, big jobs, like 7 houses being built in a week, would go undone.