UF students Maria Fitzgerald and Molly Jansen were four days into their American Red Cross internships when they were told to pack their bags and head to Maryland.
Hurricane Irene had hit the East Coast hard, and people who were left with flooded houses and ruined family photo albums needed their help.
Fitzgerald and Jansen are emergency services interns with the North Central Florida Chapter of the American Red Cross, said Casey Schmelz, emergency services manager for the chapter.
Interns must be ready to be deployed for local and national relief services - a caveat that quickly became reality for the UF seniors.
"I think anybody that can take the time to commit themselves to a community that they aren't a part of [and] that they know nothing of is some[one] very remarkable," Schmelz said.
The women aren't taking any courses this semester but are instead interning full time to fulfill an academic requirement for their health education and behavior majors, Fitzgerald said.
They have been on the road for about two weeks. They've helped people in towns throughout Maryland and New York, including Baltimore and Westchester, N.Y.
Fitzgerald saw the back half of a house washed away by the flooding - a building that had been a home to nine people before Hurricane Irene struck.
One woman she met seemed to remain strong despite her tough circumstances - until Fitzgerald handed her stuffed Mickey Mouse toys, donated to the Red Cross by Disney, to give to her children.
Then she cried.
"The woman had acted like everything was fine, and then to see her crumble. ...It really hits home," Fitzgerald said.
Jansen has dealt with the occasional person who seems mentally unstable - including one man who told her that actor Macaulay Culkin was murdered in his backyard - but said she was impacted by many of the people she met who were trying to stay positive despite their situations.
One woman told her that the flooding was just "God's way of changing the topography of the landscape."
Her uplifting attitude impressed Jansen, who met families whose mobile homes had been destroyed and whose school yearbooks and photo albums had been lost to the flooding.
Jansen had never done relief work before but had always wanted to.
"It's always been in my blood, but I've never really had the opportunity to do it [before]," she said.
Jansen should be returning to Florida in one week, and Fitzgerald is set to return in about two weeks.
That isn't guaranteed, however, because work is constantly arising that requires the help of Red Cross volunteers and interns, Fitzgerald said.
The whirlwind workdays are worth it for Jansen.
"It's kind of a rush," she said. "This was the sweetest internship ever."Courtesy to the Alligator
UF students Molly Jansen and Maria Fitzgerald, who just started internships with the local Red Cross chapter, were tapped to help with Hurricane Irene efforts. They drove a truck to Middletown, N.Y., to distribute meals to people who are cleaning up after a flood.
UF students Molly Jansen and Maria Fitzgerald, who just started internships with the local Red Cross chapter, were tapped to help with Hurricane Irene efforts. They drove a truck to Middletown, N.Y., to dis- tribute meals to people who are cleaning up after a flood.
