As the last weeks of summer come to a close, the days are always filled with a perfect pandemonium filled with a balanced blend of chaos and structure. As a Program Director I was winding down summer after school programs and summer camp and preparing to open the school year after school programs.
The summer after school programs finished two weeks before school started for the new school year, I was pushing staff at these sites to do registrations for Super Session. Super Session was the last week designed for those in summer school to get a chance to be exposed to traditional summer day camp activities; field trips, swimming, arts and crafts, sports and all the other exciting activities they missed while attending summer school. Summer after school programs became extended school day programs often filled with academic activities and teacher led tutoring disguised as fun-filled summer camp activities to reduce attrition and fall back. As much as the teachers tried, there was no bamboozling the children in believing they spent their summer in remediation.
The summer camp programs ended the Friday before school started on the following Monday. About half my staff worked the full year; which included summer camp, school year after school programs, fun day camps and holiday break camps and others were school board employees who worked strictly school year after school programs. No rest from transitioning from one program to the next for full year employees. The last weekly session of summer camp was scheduled much like the previous sessions in terms of activities and field trips centered around themes based on whether they were traditional or sports camp. Summer camp still remains my favorite program the YMCA operates with its excitement of being able to build relationships not only with our campers but our families to a greater extent than with after school programs. The campers are in the program for eight to 10 hours daily over two months which often allows relationships to continue long after the camper’s last years in the program. Campers and their families still recognize me twenty plus years after I finished operating summer camps and approach me with specific details and significant memories of something special.
With four summer after school programs to close down and start preparing to open ten school year after school programs in two weeks, the transition is an incredible feat in stamina of the outstanding site directors and supportive school board staff to make it appear virtually seamless. My energies, still focused on summer camp. How do I keep enrollment counts status quo without the customary last week drop? How do I end camp on a high note to be able to sell out fun day and holiday camps? What do I plan for my staff to celebrate a successful summer? Too many how’s and what’s and when’s to even shelve and with hopes it will resolve itself out. With a huge interjection, they always seem to resolve itself, even if inside I doubted it and saw imperfections others overlooked, but that was part of my own desire for perfection.
Friday, August 21 ended the camp session with little fanfare of excitement. Some children went swimming, others went on a field trip. As the last campers were waiting to be picked up, staff closed down camp for the week, walked around to make sure everything was put away, locked up and cleaned up our site. Some staff’s conversations centered around where to meet up after the day’s program ended and what will we do; dinner, bowling or some other diversion. Remember, how I said earlier how camp builds relationships? Well, when a good staff team comes together, often lifelong friendships are created. More often than not people grow up, move on and develop new career paths, get married and well, life gets in the way. Often ties are temporarily severed and then rekindled by finding someone on social media or through a reconnection from being recognized while out and about. With our staff scheduling the night’s activities, I doubt many staff were aware of what appeared Tropical Storm Andrew, looming just off our Atlantic coast and appeared to be weakening.
Little did anyone know leaving on that Friday, August 21 and returning on Monday, August 24 will be permanently etched into memory banks as we will all know exactly where we were the very moment when the media reported to brace for Andrew to hit south Florida. By Saturday morning, south Floridians were buying last minute hurricane necessities such supplies of food, water, toiletries and items to protect their property. Over the weekend, the sounds of people preparing their homes for the anticipated arrival of an unruly visitor filled neighborhoods while I witnessed something different. Neighbors avoided the obligatory wave as they passed each other and engaged in conversation with each other and came together, to go out of their way to help one another. The hours leading to Sunday, August 23 evening arrived quicker than anyone would have hoped. The sun settled in for the evening slumber as did my family and guests, we all settled in and became hypnotized to the nonstop television coverage until everything went black hours before dawn.
For what seemed like eternity, the unrelenting howling winds, flashes of lightning and the occasional sounds of deafening crashes of debris flying and explosions of transformers blown were the only things penetrating the hurricane shutters protecting the windows. It was not until seeing the devastation on television we realized how fortunate to have only lost electricity and sustained tolerable damage, as we were able to remain inconvenienced in the comforts of our own home. Just a block away, the enormous banyan trees which lined the median of Park Road were all toppled over. Broward County was spared the worst while our neighbors further south in Miami-Dade County weren’t as fortunate.
By mid-Monday, our neighborhood, again, came together, helping one another to clear driveways and yards of fallen debris, cooking meals on gas barbeques to use up any perishables in our freezers, watching television hooked up to car batteries and just counted our blessings and prayed for those who suffered losses of all their life’s possessions. Somehow telephone service remained and family and friends called to check in on us as the media reported south Florida was annihilated by Hurricane Andrew. In the midst of all the calls, my YMCA supervisor called me to check in on my family, after a few moments there was silence on the other end. While I am certain it was hard for him to ask the question, I don’t think he realized his question required no second guessing or a moment to think about it, but the answer was a unwavering, “Yes.” as my job was much more than just a job to collect a paycheck.
The “Yes.” was an answer to a multiple pronged debriefing statements twisted into inviting interrogation of action items.
1. Visit camp site, assess it, close it down, pack it up – doesn’t look as is going another session.
The camp site located in a park was filled with debris from trees and destroyed shelters/cabins. Our cabins were nothing more than clapboard rooms sitting on pallets foundations. We packed up salvageable items and vacated the camp site.
2. Secure strong staff (mature, emotional and physical) to help our neighbors to the south.
Basically, I and a couple of my staff were “voluntold” our responsibilities will be to work Hurricane Andrew Recovery at the direction of the YMCA of Greater Miami.
3. To put trust into God first, and then my strong team to start the school year off.
I didn’t realize at the time my commitment was for 3 to 5 days weekly to work at Harris Field and due to curfews my ability to arrive and leave was at the discretion of the armed forces personnel. . Our staff were able to pull together clothing, toiletry essentials, drinking water and canned foods for us to deliver to various staging areas.
I am not sure exactly which day we took the first convoy to Harris Field was – it was either by Thursday or Friday. Packed in backpacks were dry socks, t-shirts and pants and basic toiletry necessities and prepared for what may have been the most impactful moment of our lives. The further south we drove on Florida’s Turnpike, the devastation progressed and increased by magnitudes from the few trees down and some debris scattered around in the south Broward County/north Miami-Dade County, to full catastrophic war-like destruction of entire neighborhoods where unidentifiable from their original state. The television reports were unable to capture the full effect of the damage, the magnitude could only have been seen in person. No words can express the gut-wrenching and emotional uneasiness tension felt. Once we arrived at Harris Field, we saw lines of people waiting in queue for the basic necessities of which we all take for granted each and every day.
The YMCA of Greater Miami had allowed me to assist in my area of expertise – child care, as they set up a makeshift child care center at Harris Field. Over the next 4 months, I spent countless hours and days changing diapers, powdering behinds, feeding and nurturing the youngest to playing games to distract fears and listening to their sadness of school-age children whose whole world turned upside down. My blessings were reinforced by this experience as I was able to go home once a week to take a shower without hot water, sleep in my own bed without air conditioning, have decent meals without electricity and to come home to a roof over my head. In the early days, it was always doubtful where you could catch a nap or even shower and where your next meal will come from as these resources were just unavailable. At times the temperature and humidity felt as Hurricane Andrew had knocked the wind out of the area and left no breeze or circulation of air and turned up the heat to just add more gloom to the already existent feelings of despair felt by so many.
The YMCA of Broward County contingent was one of the last groups of YMCA volunteers to leave Harris Field for the final time knowing too well there was still a long road for our neighbors as I returned to my YMCA full time just before winter holiday camp. Without skipping a beat, I integrated myself back into my programs and retook reigns from my outstanding staff. I picked up where I left off 4 months earlier with items needing immediate attention and to begin preparations for the upcoming summer programs with the only difference is having gained a new found awareness of how in the course of a weekend how the best laid plans can change at a moment’s notice and how this change demonstratively can leave you humble.
Today, August 24, 2017, marked twenty-five years since Hurricane Andrew decided to visit and leave a lasting legacy to all who embraced his fury and manage to find life’s pearl. Its remembering how the YMCAs throughout the country came together to rebuild each community and comfort countless families with stability, routines, resources and hope during their darkest hours that solidified to me what the YMCA is truly all about. Through this experience I met some outstanding people to whom I have lifelong relationships with and it was then I recommitted myself to the YMCA movement and its time withstanding mission.
