Hurricane Sandy

As many of you know, today marks the 1-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy.  I was born and raised in New Jersey and I also attended college there, so I heard a lot about Hurricane Sandy relief efforts and the devastation that it brought to NJ, NY, and many other areas.  The ironic part is, Sandy hit during the one year that I moved out of NJ and relocated to Florida, the hurricane capital of the country.  Luckily my family did not encounter many issues with the storm since they live about an hour from the beach, but I have friends who lost their homes and most of their belongings.  This past weekend I went to Seaside with my family to participate in a Jersey Shore clean-up service project.  The task we got assigned to was trail clean-up, which basically involved clearing branches and debris off of the nature trails at Island Beach State Park.  It was sad to see so many uprooted trees and bushes from the storm, but it was nice to be able to contribute to restoring these outdoor spaces.  Despite the devastation, it's really beautiful there.  Below is a picture of the bay that we could see from walking along the trails that we helped to clear:

Here is a photo of my family before we began our project.  It was chilly that day, especially with the breeze from the ocean!

I'll write again before the end of the week, but I wanted to add this post in honor of the anniversary of Sandy.