Mercy Village Site

For four days we worked at Mercy Village, a retirement facility right next to St. John's Hospital. We helped residents pack up their apartments and load up Pods that their belongings will stay in until the facility is fully repaired. It is estimated that it will take 9 months to repair all of the damage.

Meeting and working with the residents was a labor of love. All were incredibly grateful for our help and were so surprised that we had come all the way from Kentucky. They had a deadline of last Saturday at 5:00pm to be moved out, so we all had to work together to get everything packed up and out. We finished by 10am on Saturday!

This is Patty. She is 74 years old and had lived in her apartment for 5 years. She said that she was the only one who had ever lived in her apartment and she was very proud of the decorating that she had done to make it home. She was dusting her apartment when the warning for the tornado came on the TV. She knew that she had to get to the first floor immediately. She grabbed her purse and headed down the stairs.

She remembers it raining really hard, and when the tornado came, all the residents were in the hallway, crouching down and covering their heads. When the tornado had passed and it was safe to leave, all residents were taken to a shelter that had been set up at Missouri Southern University. She says there were all kinds of people staying at the shelter and she remembers being scared. Luckily, her neighbor from across the hall was sleeping in a cot next to her and that brought her comfort.

The day after the tornado had hit her family arrived to take her to their home. She had been staying there for a week and a half until she was allowed to come back to her apartment to collect her salvagable belongings.
This is where we met Patty.

I had the honor of packing up one of Patty's most prized possessions, her living room hutch that was full to the brim of all her old photos and memorabilia from her life. I sat with her as we wrapped glasses in newspaper and looked through photos of her when she was just a baby. I got to hold in my hands her birth certificate, marraige license, and her 3rd grade report card. I got to look through postcards her mother had collected. It was an incredible experience to share with Patty.

Patty is unsure of her future. She has just moved in to an assisted living community and is hoping to shortly move into her own home provided by Habitat for Humanity. She admitted that she was a little scared to start over, but she was full of hope for the years to come. She was looking forward to playing bingo, going on outings, and maybe even meeting new friends, both in the assisted living community and the street she hopes to live on soon. - Kelly