News

Volunteers flock to Bottineau from all over US

By Tyler Ohmann

09/11/2012

Jim Rice is from Elijay, Ga. Frank Coranzo is from New York City. Christian Jones is from Omaha, Neb., but this weekend they are all in the same place, Bottineau.

All three of them and hundreds more traveled across the country, brought together by the New York Says Thank You Foundation and the Annie’s House project at Bottineau Winter Park, to volunteer to help build Annie’s dream house.

To Bottineau or bust

Rice is a contractor, who began his work on NYSTY projects just last year when the project was in his home town, where NYSTY rebuilt an animal rescue barn that was destroyed by a tornado.

“I had heard about these guys from a friend, and that they did good work, so I went to see what I could do, and I didn’t leave for 13 days,” Rice said. “These guys go from town to town and they get help from the locals, so that’s what I kind of did. I facilitated.”

After working for nearly two weeks on completing this barn, Rice decided he would be on board to go wherever the group headed this fall. That just happened to be Bottineau, which made travel plans a bit more difficult.

“I got very enthused about what this group does, and I met a lot of good people that built upon year after year, they were the ones that were helped and then the next year they payed it forward,” Rice said. “Wherever it led us, this year it led us to Bottineau, and we had a lot of trouble planning the logistics of getting here.”

Before leaving for Bottineau, Rice put a picture on facebook. It was a picture of himself (with no identification that it was him) facing down a highway with a backpack on and his thumb up, with a sign that read ‘Bottineau or bust.’

“You always see these iconic pictures during the 60s or 70s or in the 30s during the dust bowl, and I got this alliteration of ‘Bottineau or bust’ in my mind, and I wanted to tell that Elijay was committed to coming to Bottineau,” Rice said. “I wanted to do it anonymously, that’s why I didn’t tag my name on it, and had the caption, ‘good people, helping good people, heading north.’”

“The funny thing about it was, we got to the Bottineau sign, took another picture, like we made it,” Rice added.

Another funny thing was, Rice was prepared to do just that, hitch a ride anyway possible.

“That’s just it, I was going to walk if I have to,” Rice said.

However, Rice did eventually find a way to get here. He crammed all his tools, a bunch more tools that people who flew here needed, stars for the Stars of Hope project and two other people into a truck and drove the nearly 1,800 miles to get to Bottineau.

“We had a 28 hour drive. We drove straight with a couple of stops,” Rice said. “We had one 65 mile per hour storm in Kansas City where we sat in a McDonalds while the doors blew open and close, open and close.”

Many have called Rice a fool, or simply asked why someone would do something that to many seems crazy. For Rice it is simple.

“Some people ask, ‘well why did you do it?, you didn’t finish the barn, you didn’t finish the ski chalet,’ but we were never there to finish,” Rice said. “We were there to help and let people know in this town, that we heard about you, and we were in that same spot awhile back.”

“It re-instills my faith that there are people out there that are willing to do good work for no other reason then to do the work,” Rice continued. “Not for fame or fortune, and just lend a hand in a group, and that’s a big part of it, and along the way you make friends, they be learning to use their first power tool, or dig their first ditch, and there’s a camaraderie about it.”

His experience last year really drove him to be excited about this year.

“You dug ditches by hand instead of with a post-digger, because when somebody got tired, there is 20 people in line waiting to be a part of this, and it’s contagious,” Rice said. “Last year, the first couple days I was frustrated, because this is how I would do it for work, but then manna would fall from heaven and things would just happen.”
This is why he forgoes a week of wages, or a vacation. He said, working on projects like this is better than a vacation.
“Everybody here is doing something for the sake of doing something good, and nothing more,” Rice said. “When you’re in a dark place and you hope for better things, and someone next to you is working hard, and doing it for the same basic reasons, it is an affirmation that you can still trust people, and that’s worth more than a trip to Tahiti.”

As far as the build, he said that nobody cares who you are when you volunteer at a project like Annie’s House. Anything that you might have known before doesn’t matter that much.

“Everybody is equal here,” Rice said. “You throw everything you thought you knew out the window.”

Project rookie

Frank Coronato is a retired firefighter from Company No. 5 in the Fire Department of New York (FDNY). He was there on 9/11, and says that he is happy to help give back what many came to do in New York—help.

“We lost 11 fire firefighters, and just what the whole country did for us, just swarmed us,” Coronato said. “So, I figure it is payback, just to come out and do this. I heard Annie’s story, and that’s why I’m doing it.”

This is Coronato’s first project. He first learned about the NYSTY and their projects about a year ago, from a friend who has been with NYSTY from the beginning.

“This is my first project, I learned about it from a friend,” Coronato said. “He told me about it eight months ago, and was like, ‘you want to come out?,’ and I was like sure, I’ll come out.”

Coronato thinks that the entire nation can learn a thing or two from projects like Annie’s House or others that NYSTY has put together. It is something he believes our nation needs to get back to.

“It is definitely a great thing, and the whole country has got to do this,” Coronato said. “We need to get back to the basics, with neighbors helping neighbors, friends helping friends, that’s what this country is about.”

“It is a great experience, it is amazing seeing all these people,” Coronato added.

Fly like an Eagle Scout

On June 11, 2008 an F3 tornado destroyed the Little Sioux Boy Scout camp in Iowa. Christian Jones, then a Star Scout, was one of 50 boys hiding in a cabin that was then destroyed by the twister. Four scouts lost their lives that night. They were his friends.

A year later the camp was to be rebuilt and reopened and Jones came back to see what he could do to help.

“I got there a year later for the reopening of the camp, and this big, Jewish guy from New York comes up on stage and says, ‘I’m Jeff Parness from the New York Says Thank You Foundation, and we’re going to be building a memorial chapel on the site of the cabin that was destroyed,” Jones said. “At first I was like, ‘what the heck is up with this, I don’t even know what’s going on.’”

Though confused as to what was happening, Jones decided to stay for the weekend and see what it was all about, a decision he says he was glad he made.

“That weekend I met so many people, and all of them have become great friends,” Jones said. “By the end of that weekend I knew I had to go wherever they went next year.”

Jones, who is now a senior in high school, has been to every project since. In 2010, he went to Mena, Ark. to rebuild homes destroyed by tornadoes. Last year he went to Elijay to help Rice and others rebuild the barn. This year he is in Bottineau to help rebuild Ann Nelson’s dream.

“I know where they have been, because I was there, so I know what they are going through,” Jones said. “When New York Says Thank You came and helped me in my time of need, it was so powerful. It was exactly what I needed, and all these people from all over the country came to help me heal, and I feel an obligation to help other people, but it also helps me at the same time.”

A big part of the projects for Jones is being able to meet new people and reconnect with those he met on previous projects.

“Every project I go to I get to meet new people, and there are friends I get to re-connect with,” Jones said. “It is amazing and astounding the friends that I make, and they are everlasting.”

At the past projects he got a lot of questions from those he had met on previous builds, especially about his Eagle Scout project, which is why he decided to hold his Eagle Scout ceremony this past Friday as part of the celebration.

“Every project I’ve gone to with this, people have asked, ‘hey, are you an Eagle Scout yet, what’s your project,’ and they have all been there to support me,” Jones said. “So, it was really important to me to share the final part of my journey to Eagle Scout with all them, who have been able to help me and have supported me throughout the years.”

“I felt that it was really important that they get to participate in this with me, because they are as much my family as blood relation,” Jones added.

However, a big part of these projects for Jones comes down to volunteerism.

“Volunteer work is an important part of my life,” Jones said. “I’ve always volunteered to try and do what I could to make the world a better place, so New York Says Thank You has really given me an opportunity to do that as much as I possibly can.”

Jones is 17 years-old, and had to skip class to come to the build.

I built Annie’s House

People traveled from all over the country, brought their hammers, saws and sweat and blood to Bottineau, and it was all for one thing—to do good.

“It’s nice to go 1,800 miles, and find out we’re pretty much all the same,” Rice said. “It’s comforting to know that we live in a big country, but that there is good people everywhere.”