This article is from page 28 of the 2007-07-24 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 28 JPG
A DETERMINED crew of 16 young- sters from Scariff and surround- ing areas took off last Thursday on a mission of mercy to help rebuild lives shattered by a natural disaster.
Fishbowl America is the name the group of young people and adults choose for their mission to work in the Hurricane Katrina disaster area MOD RML UDO Sb Seles m
The group from east Clare and south east Galway are all members of the highly active Fishbowl Youth
Club in Scariff.
The club has a history of interna- tional work and have previously been involved in or hosted eight interna- tional projects.
This however is their most ambi- tious to date. The 16 volunteers will spend two weeks helping to rebuild one of the worst affected areas in the Gulf Coast.
They will concentrate their efforts in the town of Bay, St Louis situated on the coast of Mississippi.
Prior to Katrina the town had up- wards of 8,000 residents but the
buildings in the area were completely decimated by the hurricane and even now, two years on from the disaster, only a handful of residents have been able to return to the area.
The group have spent the last year organising the trip and carrying out a number of different fund raising events around the county to help pay SDMA AYA
The youngsters have done every- thing from baby-sitting to busking and even as late as Wednesday, they were on the streets of Ennis, playing guitar, singing their hearts out and
collecting.
“Its been a long year but we’ve put everything we had into raising mon- ey to go,” said group member, Fiacra aah
“Some of our ideas worked out better than others but we got there in the end and we’re really looking forward to getting there and getting stuck in.”