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                                                                                                            Hurricanes Embrace Grandmas & Grandpas

The McMain Hurricanes also decided to visit Joe Ellen Convalescent Center before the Christmas break. We gave the senior citizens cologne, socks, perfume and other goods as presents hoping to bring their holiday a little more warmth. And yes, we are a Robotics Team, but some where between the time we called them and the time we got there some signals got mixed and they were informed that we, The Hurricanes were a choir. So we tuned our voices and sang a few holiday melodies to them brings smiles to their faces and cheer to their hearts. Although the Hurricanes thought their voices were as delightful as a hummingbird, the elderly made it pretty obvious with their hands over their ears that our voices weren’t as delightful as we thought. But even that didn’t stop us we continued to sing like dying deer. Once we came to the conclusion that had been tortured enough, each of us then chose a grandma or grandpa to which we would somewhat adopt. We sat down with them & listened attentively to their heart warming and adventure filled stories. Some talked of war, segregation, their fight for freedom, and many historical events that were able to experience. Some told us about how they got into the center & their families whom they love so dearly. When it was time to go it seemed as if they couldn’t express in words how much they appreciated the time we spent talking and listening to them. We then came up with an idea that we would visit our grandma or grandpa once a month to show them that we appreciated that time just as much as they did. When we went back in and told them see you next month the smiles on their faces were ear to ear and The Hurricanes were delighted to see what cheer their time could bring to someone else.

                                                                                        Joe Ellen Smith Convalescent Center

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                                                                                                                    Cooling Down Hurricane Style

Many of The Hurricanes community service events had been planned, with a date, and time and an exact location. But that was not always the case. During the time we were renting a snow ball machine to do some fundraising, our school encountered a problem one morning. It was September, and for others that may mean fall, but New Orleans has never followed the patterns of the seasons. So the weather we were experiencing was what you might consider a blistering hot summer day. Our school building itself has been around since the 1930’s, minor advancements have been made and now after Katrina our school is fighting the everyday battle of its condition. So in order for the building’s temperature to be adequate for the weather the system needs to be turned on hours or even a day or two ahead of time. But on this September morning that wasn’t the case, school takes in at 8 a.m. and the air conditioning system had just been turned on at seven that morning. It was hot enough to fry eggs on the chalk board, The Hurricanes had to do something! We decided to use the snow ball machine that we renting to distribute ice to everyone in the school. We didn’t rest until everyone in the building had at least one cup of shaved ice, then The Hurricanes helped themselves to a cup of ice.