The Time our Community Made a River of Flood Water by Lainey

The Time our Community Made a River of Flood Water by Lainey - April 2022 Scholarship Essay

I am from Helena, Montana and we get a lot of snow. As the months get warmer, the snow melts and comes down from the mountains. This causes our rivers to get big and overflow sometimes. In 2018, the floods got bad. People's houses were floating on water. The bishop of my church knew that this was hurting our community. So, he canceled church and told everyone to go home, change into some work clothes, and head over to this neighborhood of trailer homes with elderly people who could not take care of the flood themselves. We made a bunch of 50-pound sandbags and made our way over. We tried to block the water from coming into the homes, but the water was too high. The only thing we could do was stop the water from the source. So, everyone went from trying to protect houses to trying to stop the river. We started to build walls and redirected the water away from the homes. By the end, we were in waist-deep water, securing the walls from leaks. After hours of demanding work, we got it done.

The cool thing about this experience is that we were serving people who were not members of our church. There were also people who were not a part of our church helping. It was the whole community of Helena, helping the community of Helena. Everyone came together to offer their support. People were filling the sandbags, delivering the sandbags, putting the sandbags in place. Even the people who live in the neighborhood were offering food, water, and shelter. None of us could have done it on our own. When we got together, we were able to make a separate river out of flood water. We had the power to make change because we had the same goal. From this experience I learned about the power of community and the power of helping hands coming together. It does not matter who you are or where you come from, we all can help others.