l_j I T 1-l F-1 STORM B_1· Abigail Pm!/ On Aug. 26, 2016, the Lady Bisons softball team made the trek to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to aid families in the rebuild in~ of their homes after seYere flooding hit the area. Each year, wornen·s softball coach Philip Berry asked the team to get im·oh·ed in a community .cn·icc project. This year happened to hit clo. e to home t,\·o of the girls on the team, sophomore 11organ Acosta and senior Amanda Borden, were both natives of the Baton Rouge area. '·\\'e went after the first week of school,'' Borden said. '·Coach Berry wanted us to do something as a team to help team bonding. ,\ nothcr girl and I arc from the Baton Rouge area, so when [Berry] heard about the flooding, he wanted to do something about it.'' Coach Berry was \'Cry passionate about his team being the hands and feet of Christ in whatc\'er way po siblc. "\\'hen ,\·e all got back to school, we had our first team meeting;' Berry said. '·The girls started talki11g about what was going on [in Baton RougcJ and we started thin king about ho,1 we could help. \Ve just wantecl to help." Coach Berry said the work itselfwas incredibly demanding. Some of the homes had up to about eight feet of water inside, causing c:-.:ten iYe damage to the house. "\\'e actually helped what they call 'mud out' houses," Berry said. ''Depending on the watfr level inside the houses. you basically had to go in and take that portion of the house back to the stud·, to the framing of the house. so it can be repaired.'' According to Acosta, the team helped tear down four complete houses, sometime. to the Ycry base foundation. They emptied each house of its belongings, took down the walls and drained the homes of contaminated flood water. '·The rebuilding of people's homes and of their liYcs is just so hard.'' Acosta said. ·'\\'c \\·ould driYc around and there was people's stuff eYerywhcrc on the street. To start your life over is uch a long process.'' Berry bclie·-cd his team was strengthened, both spiritually and emotionally, through the whole experience. ''\\'hen we finally figured out, ·c could go, it was unanimous with the team that they all wanted to go all 17 roster players,·' Borden said. "They were all really excited to be a part ofit. \Vhcn you arc able to serve others together, you really connect and grow spiritually. So there's no question that, just like any time you get to scn·e, you get more out ofit than the people you're actually scn·ing." Fresh111a11 k imber(v Slaughter. assistant coach Chanin .\'au din and senior ft'i111111} H endricks u•ork to tear down th e 11.'aler-soaked drywall of a home. The f,la_)'{r.1 ,l'orked u•ithjamilie:, who lore their homes do:t·n lo the .1/ur/:,fol/01l'i11g thejlooding. I Photos courtes,J' of Phili/1 Beny )).'1 ),- \1'111. F.T IC~
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