WLOX
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Originally Posted by Andy Baker
When I was a kid, my dad was a member of the local Rotary Club. As a Rotarian, he would volunteer to host exchange students from other countries. This added much to my childhood experience, as people from many cultures would stay with us for 3-4 months at a time.
We had young men from Germany, Brazil and Saudi Arabia stay with us. Once, a young lady from Australia was our guest. I recall asking her "what language do you speak in Australia?" (I was about 8)
I am wondering if we could do this for students on these FIRST teams in the Gulf Coast area? Of course, this time, there would be no "exchange". It could be a placement program for FIRST students from teams in this area.
Could this happen? Is it needed? What are some of the legal hurdles here? If anyone wants to help investigate this, PM me and we can start working on this idea.
Andy B.
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Years ago I used to live on Gulf Coast of MS and over the years a hurricane would come through and do some damage, but it was usually only severe in a small area and nearby communities would pitch in and help out. Hurricane Frederick was probably the worst one to effect me personally. We were without power for weeks and school was delayed, but since the storm surge was not as wide spread, things returned to normal pretty quickly. With Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans teams may not be able to return to school for months, and the Gulfport schools may not have a school to return to. The schools that are not damaged are being used as shelters. I think the idea of a student exchange would be a great idea, but why limit it to FIRST students? If there are only 5 teams affected and the average FIRST team is 35 students as some have suggested, then we are only talking about 175 FIRST students out of the thousands of students that have been affected.
But don't forget, it is not just students that are displaced, it is whole families. At a stressful time like this, I am not sure that a student would want to be separated from the family. I think that any solution would have to take into account the family members. Some of these families have lost everything, their jobs, house, car, clothes, and other belongings like TVs and computers. These families might just pick up and relocate if the situation was right, i.e. a job and a place to stay.
I don't think that most of these students are thinking of FIRST. They are thinking,
When will I go home?
When can I sleep in my own bed?
When will I get my next hot meal?
When will I go back to school?
It will be a loss if these students miss out on the experience of FIRST this year, but I think any money that might be raised by FIRST teams should be used to help the relief effort and we can think about helping out with registration fees next year.
If you want to get a better idea of what is like on the MS Gulf Coast right now, the local television station
WLOX has a lot of good video online.