Three years ago, the Sosenko family home was damaged by the May 10, 2010 tornado that wreaked havoc on homes and businesses near Interstate 40 and Choctaw Road.
While the family’s home was not a complete loss, meaning many of the contents inside were saved, mom Lori Sosenko said the house still had to be demolished and built again.
In the hours, days and weeks after the tornado, the Sosenkos welcomed countless volunteers to come help them clean up their property. Without all of this help, Lori Sosenko said her family’s ability to return back to normal would have been delayed greatly.
Flash forward to May 19-20 when the tornadoes came barreling through, Lori Sosenko and her daughter Katey knew they had to help people in the same shoes as them three years earlier in some way.
A former Moore teacher, Lori knew what all was going on the city where many homes were reduced to rubble, but was compelled to help a little closer to home. She said she has family that lives in Bethel Acres that were one mile from all of the tornado activity May 19.
"We saw where help was needed in the Bethel and Shawnee area," she said.
Between her daughter, who attends Choctaw High School, and fellow student, Grant Haynes, who posted the information on Twitter, efforts began small but quickly grew to include nearly 70 people, including students and their families.
The plan was to meet at CHS at 7 a.m. this past Saturday, May 26, and then caravan in 14 carloads to the Shawnee Feed Company where everyone was then dispatched to homes.
The group spent until 11 a.m. at the first house, ate lunch, and then went to another house and stayed to 2 p.m. At the residences, which were rural and included a number of acres of land, the students helped clean up out-buildings and clear out tree limb debris.
In a few weeks, Lori Sosenko said there are plans to take a group of volunteers to Feed the Children to pack boxes to take to tornado victims. If anyone would like to participate, they should email [email protected], she said.
Why they did it?
Katey Sosenko said it was strange to be on the other side of the tornado clean-up this time. "I know how it feels to be in their shoes but I felt I needed to give back," she said.
Her advice to victims is to stay strong. "They will make it through, even though it seems like it’s hard to, everything in the end will work out. God will help you through."
Fellow student Hanna Lucas said she too felt compelled to help. "If this happened to me, I would want people to help." She said the entire experience made her feel "very blessed."
Another student Grant Haynes called the experience "humbling" in that it made him realize what he has and that it can be lost in an instant.
Kennedy Humphrey was joined by his parents, Ken and Julie in the clean-up. Where they normally go to the lake Memorial Day weekend, the family felt they needed to serve others first, the mom said.
"I heard about it and thought I wanted to do that," Kennedy said. "These people were neglected because they were in the shadow of Moore. I felt like I gained more of a better outlook on the things I have... how lucky I am for what I have, my family and other families have. It was humbling."
