Football players at North Dakota high school volunteer to clean homes after flooding

GRAND FORKS, N.D. — High school football players in North Dakota pulled together as a team to help residents recover after flooding over the weekend in Grand Forks.

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"Earlier, we just helped a lady move a small rug, and she was so grateful for us. It was cool to see that," Nathan Willett, a senior wide receiver for East Grand Forks High School, told the Grand Forks Herald.

Team members pitched in not only to help but also to say thank you after new facilities were approved for the squad.

Volunteers have helped clean a dozen homes, but officials said more than 50 still needed work, the newspaper reported.

For the football players, tackling this job was their civic duty.

"We feel like it's kind of our job to go and help them after they helped us," Willett told the Herald.  "Even if it's just moving something for your neighbor or even cutting their whole carpet in their downstairs basement like we are, anything helps."

"A lot of people are happy to see us there. So it always feels good," senior Evan Pederson, a middle linebacker, told the newspaper.

The Salvation Army and Community Organizations Active in Disaster is still seeking volunteers to remove wet rugs and Sheetrock from homes before mold sets in.

"It devastates me — volunteers are vacuuming up water from basements all over Grand Forks," homeowner DeLaine McGurran told the Herald, "I personally am a little challenged so I can't do a lot down there. I've had two hip replacements, and I've almost fallen because it's a slippery tile."

"The quicker it can get out, the quicker things can get dry -- the more likely that you aren't going to deal with mold and all of the other bad health effects of it," Mark Ellingson, chairman of COAD, told the newspaper.

Cox Media Group