Home Sweet Home

Everyone already knows that the one year anniversary of the Joplin, MO tornado came and went. Everyone knows that it was an emotional time for the town that had seen so much suffering over the past year and that the term rebuilding, while hopeful, was still in the infancy stage of the process. President Obama gave the commencement for Joplin High School's graduation, a class that had spent it's senior year in a state of shock and taking classes in a section of Northpark Mall, the main shopping hub in Joplin. 

Normal is something that everyone in the city wants, and in a small way, that's what the Kansas City Chiefs tried to bring to Joplin last week. While a professional sports team visiting a city for anything other than a road game seems everything but normal, it's what the Chiefs brought with them that is key. 

They brought with them memories of the devastation they saw last year, in the wake of the disaster, but more importantly, they brought people. People to build homes for those that lost them more than a year ago, people to help, slowly but surely, rebuild not a town but a community one house at a time. That might not seem like a lot when you see what's still left of the damage when you travel down Range Line, or see many empty blocks worth of destroyed trees that are all that remains of what used to be houses and businesses. But when you are just seeking normal, that is a lot.

I'm from the Joplin community, and attended college in Joplin. I am thankful for the Chiefs, the Rams, and all the other countless volunteers that went unpublished that have taken the time to help out Joplin. Thank you.