The Lesson I Learned from Sheds

In the spring of 2007 I went on a disaster relief team to Port Sulphur, Louisiana; it was during this trip that I developed my belief in giving to people in need. While this may seem like an idea that most everyone holds not many people have come to this believe on their own or gone through the same experiences that I did to come to this belief.

While in Port Sulphur the group that I was with was working in conjunction with a local church that was building sheds for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. While sheds may not seem like something that the people would need they were actually very helpful to the people who had to fit a family and all of their belongings into a FEMA trailer.

When the sheds were completed we were able to go on the delivery of the sheds to the people. Even though the people had almost nothing they were always so gracious for what they had and thanks us multiple times for the shed. The people were so thankful that people cared about them enough to give up their time to help them rebuild their lives in any way.

While I was giving up my spring break to build sheds in the hot and humid Louisiana weather, there was never a time in which I would have rather been doing anything else. Just being able to see the affects that something so simple as a shed had on these people was a reward enough. I felt good being able to give to people who were truly in need. The feeling that I got from seeing the faces of the people who received the sheds was amazing. Building the sheds for people who were in no way to be able to help themselves was such a satisfying experience. It is one of the best feelings in the world to be able to do something for somebody that is need.

Since that trip I have worked on numerous other volunteer projects all because of the experiences that I had while building sheds in Port Sulphur, Louisiana.