The clean up process begins

For the next nine days, clean up was in full swing. School staff, faculty, students, alumni, parents and other community members came together with the same goal: Reopening St. Mark’s.

Mauch: The campus was definitely in shock for a few moments for a day or two, but they came together. Things were taken care of and everything was planned on.

Paul Genender ‘87, Trustee and parent: There were some St. Mark’s seniors, who were going around the neighborhood and passing out water to everyone, which was nice. One of George’s classmates, Sal Hussein (then a ninth grader) we were friendly with, was going around with his drone to check to see if people had real damage to their roofs.

Nolan Marcus ‘24: My friends all came over to my house to help clear up trash and clear out our fridge because it wasn’t working. There were eight or nine families at my house helping us do stuff throughout the week. I think I stayed at four or five different houses in seven days. Everywhere you looked, whether it was helping strangers, helping us, helping other families in the St. Mark’s community that were impacted, you really saw relief efforts everywhere from people of all grades.

Rogers: This wasn’t a school-sanctioned activity, it was just a couple of St Mark’s seniors who wanted to help their neighbors, and they were going door to door, offering help, which was fantastic. It was heartwarming. All the neighbors came together, including St Mark’s, a neighbor of ours, and community members of St. Mark’s.

Nolan Marcus: That senior class in 2020 was an awesome class. I think it was the day after (the tornado), that Monday, they started some relief efforts for people who were impacted around the community. They were getting food and clothes out to families.

Siddamshetty: There’d be so many St. Mark’s students that I’d only like met once, or who had never even met, who came and started helping us out. And, you know, people from the school like Mr. Dini would come to us and tell us personally, ‘If you need anything, please let us know. We’re happy to help.’

St. Mark’s was scheduled to have its Homecoming game against Greenhill Friday, Oct. 25, but the school couldn’t host it due to the debris on the fields.

Lissemore: Greenhill reached out to us and said, ‘Hey, we’ll host homecoming for you guys.’ They went above and beyond, and they actually lined the field with our colors, they allowed us to bring our goal post pads and put them on their goal posts. We can’t thank them enough.