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On October 31st at 6:30 AM the big candy drop took place in Bay St. Louis, MS, near Biloxi. Bay St. Louis is one of those places you saw on TV-- the coastal area was totally razed and major damage extended to everything for a half mile or more inland.
Retired Air Force Colonel Gail Halvorsen was guest of honor. In 1948 during the Berlin Airlift, he was the pilot who initiated the parachute drop of candy to the deprived German children on the ground. This event has been often chronicled in history books and documentaries. You can read more about it here.
Some of our volunteers were helping at a devastated school (see classroom picture) in Bay St. Louis and learned of the candy drop project. Just as the candy drop gave hope to the children in Berlin, it was intended to give hope to the children of the devastated schools in Bay St. Louis and Waveland. They're currently attending the "Tent School." The picture shows JoJo next to one of the tent classrooms.
Here is Col. Halvorsen with the HandsOnUSA crew.
The event was covered by ABC's Good Morning America show. One of the show's anchors, Robin Roberts, grew up in nearby Pass Christian and was on hand to narrate. The local paper has an article on the event and ABC has an article on their website.
The plane appeared over the field on time but the parachutes landed on the tent school instead. The TV people spread candy by hand over the field and sent the kids out on a staged retrieval.
Our own media buff Bill Driscoll printed up a phony press pass on his PC the night before and was able to gain access to the field during the event. He got lots of good footage. Here is Bill showing off his "press pass." We finished with a full breakfast provided free by the hippies of the Rainbow group who manage a soup kitchen called the New Waveland Cafe.
On the way home, we took a detour down to the seaside area where the worst damage occurred. For miles there is no trace of the suburban houses that once lined the streets-- just concrete slabs.
Halloween
HandsOn handed out flyers in the neighborhoods over the weekend announcing that we'd be handing out candy to kids on the streets on Halloween. We got several hundred bags from our friends at the Salvation Army and bought $600 worth of candy at the store. After setting up an assembly line in our base camp, we got volunteers to fill up a couple hundred bags with candy and other goodies.
At dark, we set out with a number of vehicles and cruised the neighborhoods to do some "reverse trick-or-treating."
Most of the volunteers got rigged up in costumes from the relief supplies. Joey (foreground) had a nice dress and bonnet and actually got propositioned by a [drunken] local resident.
Chuck had a stunning red bra over his t-shirt. We cruised our assigned section of the city and were stunned to realize how deserted the neighborhoods were. You could go for several blocks without seeing a light on-- usually a FEMA trailer or a tent. Obviously, there were no kids out and about-- it would have been useless for them to try.
So Chuck actually went door to door, "Excuse me-- do you have any small children?" You can imagine the response that got! Eventually, he changed his routine: "It's Halloween. I have candy. Are there any children here?" That got a better response and the kids were really thrilled. Chuck has over 20 years experience teaching grade schoolers but he reported that this was the most moving response he'd ever seen in his life.
