Realizing What You Have

When I went home last weekend I participated in a volunteer project to clean up the mess that was left over from hurricane Gustav. I participated in many projects just like this one after hurricane Katrina also. Though the damage done by hurricane Katrina was far more destructive, there were still things that needed to be picked up. I worked in a very poor area in New Orleans where there were people living in about every other house. Most of the houses that we were gutting had been left untouched since hurricane Katrina. I actually remember working on some of the same houses. Both times during this project I can remember thinking how grateful I am for my nice home and that my home had almost no damage to it after each storm.

From this experience I learned that many people need all the help they can get and that the smallest bit of help from someone else can really make a huge difference. When we arrived the people were so glad to see us, most of them had not even begun to clean up their houses because they knew we were coming. One woman in our group brought along her six year old son, who no one thought would be a help to the project. He actually turned out to be a huge help. As the older group members would tear off roof shingles he would take them and put them in the garbage. We probably would have been there at least an hour longer if he wasn’t there.

After participating in this project I learned that I need to stop saying that I have “no clothes.” Compared to those people, I have a department store full of clothes. I also need to stop wanting more and more new things. I have everything I really need to survive, I just want more. After seeing that those people barely had enough to survive, I realized that I really have to appreciate more the things that have been given to me.