For the past week I have listened as the news from the Gulf grew steadily worse. I watched as the first pictures of the devastation were shown over and over and the situation grew rapidly more desperate. My emotions swung from shock to anger to depression. The pictures and the stories invaded my dreams and echoed in my head even after I had promised myself not to turn on the television or the radio and to walk away from the computer with its unlimited stream of news.

But Monday the darkness of my own mood was lightened when I saw the steady stream of vehicles pulling into Baltzell Gate. It was not the few hundred people that had signed up to help get the Starships ready for the Katrina evacuees; it was thousands.

Thousands of people like me willing to give up a day of vacation for a day of labor in the sun to do something, anything, to help. I saw young people and old people and every age in between. I saw light skin, dark skin, and by the end of the day lots of newly red skin. Always I saw people smiling and strangers helping strangers. Local churches set up tents and handed out food, parents and children pulled toy wagons or wheeled coolers and handed out bottled water, every where people were busy pitching in wherever something needed to be done.

It was an amazing sight. Everyone was busy, moving from one task to the next. There was no one directing the work, no one in charge, and no one waiting to be told what to do; just motivated people working hard to do something good for people that they may never meet, may never even see.

To all those that answered the call at McCellan on Monday, thank you. Thank you for your help with the work, thank you for your generosity, thank you for your smiles and laughter and, most of all, thank you for brightening my day and lifting my spirits.