Moving Day for Holy Rosary School After Flood

Avoca, Luzerne County - While politicians crisscrossed the area Friday, the hard work of trying to recover is still facing thousands of people.

After students from Holy Rosary School in Duryea were flooded out, administrators have been working to get them back in class.

Starting Monday morning, the students will attend class at St. Mary's School on Spring Street in Avoca.

Volunteers spent all day Friday getting the empty school back in shape. They moved books and furniture to make sure classes can start.

Volunteers from Misericordia University were some of the people who made it happen.

"It makes me feel like I'm doing something important," sophomore Debbie Keys said. "I think it's so important to give back to your community."

"You get a feeling in the pit of your stomach and having been here in 1972 with that flood, I know what these people are going through," instructor Tom Sweetz said.

Holy Rosary school took on several feet of water last week.

While the clean-up is underway, principal Kathleen Gilmartin doesn't know when students will be able to go back.

"They have a lot of the clean-up part of it done in the basement of the school and the church," Gilmartin said. "They had some of the walls taken out in the ceilings but it looks like it's gonna be a process so until it is safe and sound, we have someplace to be."

Among those helping in Friday's move were rivals of sort. Students from both the Holy Cross and the Holy Redeemer football teams helped in the move.

They will battle it out on the gridiron Saturday...but Friday...they were united in the mission to get Holy Rosary back up and running.

"Everyone here is happy to do it and I mean, we get out of school too, so that's always a good thing," Shawn Stefanski of Holy Redeemer said.