Tornado: Part Five

As I pulled into the driveway at Southmoore on Friday morning something colorful caught my attention.  I saw a large amount of yellow shirts on the side of our building...with rakes, shovels, trash bags, etc.  They were helping to clean our grounds of the debris from the peripheral winds of the tornado.  I did make my way out to where they were working so as to learn who this group was.  Interestingly enough I noticed that it wasn't just yellow shirts, but there were also many people wearing purple...there were actually TWO volunteer groups.  The purple clad blessings were part of a national disaster recovery team called DRAW: Disaster Relief at Work; this specific group was a based out of a Michigan community near Detroit.  The yellow clad blessings were part of a national disaster relief team affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints; these "Mormon Helping Hands" include LDS missionaries from all over the U.S. and they were joined today by one of Southmoore's own wonderful LDS families...the Beans!!  Both groups worked long and hard to help beautify our grounds!

DRAW: Disaster Relief at Work (Team Purple)

Mormon Helping Hands (Team Yellow)

Mormon Helping Hands (Team Yellow)

The Bean Family working with Mormon Helping Hands
(Justin, Shawn, Gordon, Shauna, Erin, & Jourdon)

Friday morning was filled with a bunch of "end of year" procedures and clean-up which are part of our usual duties as teachers.  However, no computer network, internet, e-mail, or grade-book access complicated much of this [smile].  I did get as much packed and cleaned up as possible, which included boxing up LOTS of textbooks as this is the end of the adoption cycle for Social Studies textbooks.

The remainder of the day involved some relief/outreach projects which actually began getting planned on Tuesday.  While I was at Norman High School on Tuesday (see Tornado: Part Two) I began receiving some text messages from a friend and colleague with Union Public Schools (Tulsa area).  Philippa Kelly and I have gotten to know each other over the past several years as teachers of AP Human Geography and this relationship has grown since I began my involvement with Student Council.  Philippa is currently the director/coordinator of all student activities at Union High School.  She was contacting me so serve as a local coordinator for delivery of a host of items being donated as part of a relief drive in Union P.S.  We texted and called each other over the next few days and Friday afternoon was the time we scheduled for delivery.

I met up with Philippa and Eli Huff, one of her colleagues from Union, before their arrival to First Baptist Church in Moore.  Due to the interstate route they were planning, along with FBC already being a primary donation drop-off point, we had decided to make the drop here.  As we pulled in to the unloading area we were informed that they did not need anymore bottled water as their supply was already too large so we verbally mentioned that we would take it on down to Southmoore.  As they heard us talking about going to another relief center they asked if we could take more water and some clothing and stuffed animals with us.  Philippa and Eli agreed.  So after unloading many other supplies, including personal hygiene products, baby diapers, and baby formula we took on our agreed upon load.

We then began the navigation process toward Southmoore.  Due to repair to electric lines and other utilities, some of the main roads which had become open following the clearing of major debris were now re-closed. So the route was a major weaving around.  Somehow we ended up driving west 4th Street between Sunnylane and Eastern Avenue and then south on Eastern Avenue toward 19th Street...the heart of much of the devastation which occurred east of I-35.  While not the best route for trying to get to Southmoore rapidly it ended up being an important visual image to all three of us on the importance of the relief work that Union P.S. (and so many other schools and organizations around) were doing.

Union Public Schools' Eli Huff & Philippa Kelly

In a mad dash of unloading items into Southmoore, the representatives from the Moore Council PTA who were overseeing the SHS based relief center were just amazing by the efforts of Union's power team to not only bring items for relief, but to also help shuffle items from one relief center to another.  Members of those yellow clad "Mormon Helping Hands" also helped to unload the supply van.  Philippa and Eli had to leave all too soon so as to get the borrowed van back to Tulsa on time.

I continue to be so blessed by ALL of the various groups who are actively providing their love and support.  I've received so many messages contacting me: from Broken Arrow, OK, to Nevada, to Utah, and even to an agriculture education team at a school in Texas who were concerned about meeting the needs of the animals in Moore's ag. ed. program.  SIMPLY OVERWHELMED WITH BLESSING!!

Tornado: Part Two

Shortly after 5:30 on "that day", my cell phone obtained enough reception to receive a text message from Dawn Brockman, the sponsor of the Student Congress at Norman High School (community immediately to the south of Moore/SW OKC).  She reached out to me due to our connections with Student Council activities in Oklahoma (we've also previously worked together at Moore High School several years ago).  Her message was that her students were already putting in to place an action plan to provide donations to help provide relief for the family of my Southmoore students/families.  Their donation blitz was being RAPIDLY organized for Tuesday, May 21st.

Much of the rapid nature of their activities was due to social networking, especially a twitter account which they had created for a previous charitable outreach program: @tigerpalooza.

In that Moore Public Schools were obviously going to be closed on Tuesday, I made the decision to drive down to Norman High to help Dawn and her students in anyway I could.  You'll notice that I underlined the word "organized" above.  When I walked in to Dawn's classroom at approximately 9:30 Tuesday morning I can't even try to describe how well organized their process was:

• Gently used clothing was being sorted in multiple phases: 1) into what was legitimately appropriate to donate to families in need, you might call it quality control, 2) into gender appropriate items, 3) into type of clothing like pants, t-shirts, nicer shirts, coats, 4) into sizes.  Then the sort items were placed with like items into boxes and labeled (i.e. "women's medium t-shirts")
• Diapers, wet wipes, paper towels, toilet paper, and various hygiene products were taken and sort in a classroom next door.
• Bottles of water and a variety of sports drinks were being staged in a classroom across the hall

Delivery was scheduled for early that afternoon.  Since the current students would not be allowed to drive vehicles or otherwise help deliver to items to relief sites due to legal liabilities, the organizing team had galvanized their alumni base, many of whom live in this University of Oklahoma community, to assist with delivery.  I was blown away by the number of alum volunteers who showed up to help.

In all actuality, this WHOLE organized effort blew me away.  I had gone to help them work, but it was clear any work I would add would just be me getting in their way.  So I stayed back, took pictures, and tried to be an encouragement to them in their efforts to be an encouragement to my students and the community of my school.  Below are some pictures of this efforts:

Donations-a-Plenty

In preparation for my Teacher for Global Classrooms trip to Indonesia, I asked LOTS of people, organizations, businesses, cultural groups, etc., to donate items for me to give out to those whom I meet in Indonesia, especially the students at the schools I will be visiting.  Let's just say "I'm blown away!!!"

Here's a sampling of what I am trying to squeeze into a rolling duffel bag and yet not exceed the 50 lbs weight limit...

From a variety of school clubs & sports teams at Southmoore High School
~Freshman Class, Junior Class, Senior Class, Student Council,
Speech & Debate, National Honor Society, Soccer, Track & Field,
SuperCats, Administration, Yearbook, & AP Human Geography~
Donations included t-shirts galore, sweat pants, sunglasses, foam spirit fingers,
key chains from our first prom, the 2011-2012 Yearbook, and a 3x5 Oklahoma Flag

From the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum
Pencils and "Character" lapel pins

From the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
Pencils and bookmarks featuring horses

From the Oklahoma Department of Libraries
bookmarks with pictures of Oklahoma's history

From the Oklahoma City RedHawks baseball team
baseball hats, t-shirts, pencil bags, blankets, pennate flags, and note pads



From the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team
insulated lunch bags, peel-n-stick patches, rulers, pencil bags (with sharpener, pencils, eraser, & ruler), rubber wrist bands, rubber wrist watches, and lapel pins

In addition to these gifts, I also have 400+ hand written postcards from the students at Briarwood and Oakridge elementary schools and my AP US History and AP Human Geography students.

I am so thankful to each of these organizations for their generosity and I look forward to sharing pictures of the students and other individuals who will become recipients of these wonderful "Oklahoma" treasures.

I'm a Balla' (maybe?)

Today at school, Student Council teamed up with our Special Olympics Team to help raise money for the Special Olympians to be able to go to their state competition in May.  Due to the state competition being out of town all of the expenses for registration, hotels, food, transportation, etc., top $2000.  Today's fundraiser was billed as the "SuperCat Slam" (we call our Special Olympians the "SuperCats") and constituted a pay-to-get-out-of-class assembly for an exhibition basketball game between the SuperCats and a gang of rag-tag faculty members, the FacultyCats.

David "The Globetrotter" Burton

My STUCO officers nominated me as one of the rag-tag faculty members and so I donned my uniform (see picture above) and joined 9 other teachers as we challenged the SuperCats.  Nearly 1200 of our @2000 students paid $2 each to get out of 6th hour to see us make "fools" of ourselves as we supported a great cause.  It was great fun even though the FacultyCats lost 20(something) to 11 (2 of those points were mine, ha!).  I am proud to be at such a great school that offers the opportunity to be part of such a special event.  Sometimes roaming the remote roads demands that we step out of comfort zones, risk embarrassment, and yet be on the receiving end of a very joyous time.

Front row: Kelly "The Punisher" Johnson, Andrae "So So Smooth" McConnell,
and Brandon "The Wizard" Wilmarth
Back row: Kasie "Show-and-Glow" Hill, Macie "The Maniac" Viets",
Cory "The Intern" Vance, Will "Mighty Mouse" Staats, David "The Globetrotter" Burton,
Bobbie "The Baller" Grauman, and David "The Cat-man" Hanneman

Student Council Exchange

One of my extra duties at Southmoore is serving as one of two sponsors for Student Council.  One of the activities sponsored by our state STUCO "district" is to have exchanges of our councils between our member high schools.  Last week Southmoore's STUCO hosted the STUCO from Yukon High School (in a suburb just west of the Oklahoma City).  Yesterday, Southmoore's STUCO collectively became roamers of remote roads by traveling to Purcell High School (a more rural community south of Oklahoma City).

A symbol of welcome and friendship:
Southmoore SaberCat and the Purcell Dragon

While Yukon is a school near the same size as Southmoore (@2000 students), Purcell (@450 students) provided our Southmoore kids with a chance to see how academic life is similar and different within a smaller and more rural environment.  Some of the differences noticed by our kids: their entire library could fit inside of the computer lab within our library, the total area of their classroom wing would fit within 1/4 of our classroom space, they have one assistant principal while we have four, they have two counselors while we have six, they have one gymnasium and we have two, etc.  Despite the differences noticed, our kids noticed many similarities in curriculum (our students sat through a class session), technology available within classrooms, difficulty with efforts of STUCO trying to get all students involved in something extracurricular, social-family-academic-etc. problems faced by students.

One issue that most of their STUCO kids thought would be a major differences between their rural school and our suburban school was their agricultural program (plant growing techniques, raising of livestock, and other agri-science options).  In fact, many of our students initially thought this was a big difference too.  What struck me as being humorous about this is that our school district ALSO has an agricultural program.  While our program is offered to students at all three of our high schools (Moore, Southmoore, and Westmoore), the actual classroom space and green house is provided on the campus of Moore High and then there is a singular location for a district owned farm to serve as a practical "lab" space.  Since the classroom space is not on our campus this is why many of our own students were not familiar with this option.  It was fun to see their expressions in discovering that this "difference" was actually a "similarity".

All in all, the Southmoore SaberCat STUCO and the Purcell Dragon STUCO had a great time getting to know each other and developing some friendships with our students within STUCO District 8.  Our STUCO will continue our efforts of roaming the remote roads and learning about other schools and their local councils.