By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation

For Baylor softball coach Glenn Moore, the devastating floods in southern Louisiana hit home, because for him this was home.

"Denham Springs is the area where (my wife) Janice and I lived when we were down there," said Moore, who played football at Northwestern (La.) State and coached softball at LSU. "And we have about 10 of our former players from William Carey (College), LSU and even Baylor (whose houses were destroyed). One of our ex-coaches, Brandi Landry, now Smart, her house was flooded. She and her family are homeless at the time, living with other people.

"So, it became very personal to me. And when they reached out and asked if we could help in any way, we started mobilizing and we were able to get down there and help them out."

In separate relief efforts, Baylor softball sent about $25,000 in donated cash and supplies and worked for two days to help with the massive clean-up projects; and Baylor baseball had a group of 40 players, coaches and staff that helped in the Denham Springs and Baton Rouge areas for two days over the Labor Day weekend.

"Just completely humbling, puts you back in your tracks in a heartbeat," said sophomore outfielder Richard Cunningham from Austin. "You see moms and fathers picking through baby pictures that are hardly recognizable. . . It was incredible just to go and serve and to love on those people and do anything we could to help them. But when you come back, you're like, 'Goodness gracious, I need to count my blessings,' because we saw a lot of hard stuff."

Working through Antioch Community Church in Baton Rouge, the baseball team went from house to house, never really knowing what they were getting into until they got there.

"For some people, we were literally taking everything out of their house ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢' ¬" from clothes to furniture to appliances," baseball head coach Steve Rodriguez said. "And then for others, they had done some of the work already . . . but we did the more tedious things like taking nails out of baseboards and ripping up all the carpet tacks and taking up tile ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢' ¬" just some of the little things that are time-consuming and labor-intensive. But we had a very capable group of guys that were able to do those things."

One of the hardest things was seeing the piles and piles of debris stacked up along the streets. Ninety percent of the homes in Denham Springs were virtually destroyed last month by what Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards described as "historic, unprecedented flooding" when he declared a state of emergency.

"We drive by and see just a bunch of trash and a bunch of dry wall and stuff like that," Rodriguez said. "But as I was explaining to our guys, you're driving by and you're seeing the couch that they spent Christmas morning on; you're seeing the table they had Thanksgiving Day dinner on . . . just a lot of memories.

"It really became evident when we started working with the people ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢' ¬" the tears that came to their eyes, the hugs that our guys got ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢' ¬" that this wasn't just a work-laborious thing that we were doing We were hopefully changing some lives and helping them try to get their houses rebuilt."

Partnering with Woodlawn Baptist Church in Denham Springs, Moore and the softball team worked with 20 different families on jobs that ranged from completely gutting houses to stripping all the sheet rock and insulation in a 1,500-square-foot home in 75 minutes.

"One of the families told us that if they had to get someone else to do it, it would have cost $8,000," said senior pitcher Kelsee Selman, who transferred last year from LSU. "You would pull into a neighborhood, and you can't even see the houses because of the trash that's pled up. The inside of their house is literally outside."

Junior third baseman Steven McLean said the work wasn't overwhelming, "because they're the ones that had lost all they lost."

"It was just an amazing experience for us, but more importantly for that community in Louisiana that really needed the help," he said. "It was obviously a tragic event. But to see their faces and how happy they were once we all showed up, that really set in our heart that we were doing something right and we can really help these people out."

Maybe even more important than the supplies and the clean-up efforts was the baseball and softball teams praying with and ministering to people that are struggling to put their homes and lives back together.

"We were able to minister to a lot of these families and pray with them, put our arms around them and just listen," Moore said. "Just listen to some people that are hurting, confused, not knowing where they're going to turn next. . . . We were able to play just a very small role. With the magnitude of that destruction, sometimes you have to wonder what good you're doing. But, it takes a lot of people doing a little bit to help them out."

McLean said it was hard to walk away, knowing how much work was still left to do. "We made a dent, but there is so much to be done," he said.

"The devastation there is so massive, we put maybe a tiny drop in the bucket," Cunningham said. "But with the five or six families we were able to help, I think going forward they have a huge weight off their shoulders. In regards to all of it, I don't know if we made a very big difference. But there are five or six families that we might have saved them four or six weeks of just labor by us going there. And if that's the case, then awesome. We did what we needed to do."

In addition to the relief efforts of the baseball and softball programs, Baylor women's basketball coach and Hammond, La., native Kim Mulkey got support from the Waco community and had a trailer filled with more than $35,000 worth of school supplies to be distributed in the Tangipahoa Parish east of Baton Rouge.

"That's just the way all people should be, and I believe most people are. When someone's in need, you answer and go help them out," Moore said. "We just gave the community an opportunity to allow us to be their hands and feet and go down there and serve a little bit."