Continued: One day at a time for Waite House kids

Jovita Francisco tried to drive across a bridge in December, but her son and daughter's protests and sobs forced her to turn the car around and continue on the trip alone.

Nine-year-old Jonathan and 11-year-old Jazmine also have nightmares several times a week that leave their mother teary-eyed and emotionally drained.

They are among the 52 kids from a south Minneapolis community center who were aboard the yellow school bus stranded on the broken expanse of Interstate 35W on Aug. 1 when the bridge collapsed.

Waite House has needed to play a pivotal role in helping the children and their parents. Many of the families are immigrants who lack the language skills or experience to navigate social-service systems and find the resources that can help their children, staffers said.

Many families also had more than one child on the bus, multiplying the emotional and financial commitment for parents who sometimes work two or three jobs. "As we survived the bridge as a community, we knew that we needed to go through the steps of recovering as a community," said Julie Graves, the Waite House youth program manager who broke several bones that traumatic day.

Francisco said her kids still have emotional and physical problems.

But, she said, they have come a long way with the group therapy and psychological help Waite House has provided.

"It's helped them a lot," Francisco said. "When they're scared ... especially when we go outside with the car and they can't breathe, they remember the techniques [therapists] shared here. ...

"It's hard, because my kids, if they're not OK, I'm not OK. I have to cry."

Community center employees will start taking the children, who range from kindergartners to teenagers, to meditation, yoga and Pilates classes to help them overcome the emotional and physical strains of the collapse and its aftermath.

"A lot of the kids, because of the injuries they have sustained, haven't been active," Graves said.

Cutting through bureaucracy

Rachel Henderson, a Spanish-speaking family advocate who was hired in response to the bridge collapse, helps parents with health insurance applications, as well as connecting with attorneys and accessing financial help.

"There is a lot of bureaucracy and red tape," she said. "There are a lot of frustrating days."

Students and staff at Waite House in Minneapolis' Phillips neighborhood are a tight-knit lattice of friends, relatives and siblings. Francisco worked at the center's office on a recent evening as her daughter played computer games down the hall.

Some students have been attending after-school tutoring and programs there for 10 years, with a few of them joining the staff when they enter high school.

Six months after the collapse that killed 13, many students remained reticent about talking about their experiences when asked by a reporter.

Staffers said they have opened up when Waite House brought in psychologists and therapists to meet with them in weekly group sessions. Separate sessions have also been provided for parents.

Jeisy Aguaiza, 13, was sleeping on the bus when a big bump woke her up. Dust filled the bus as she scanned the seats for her 7-year-old brother, Ronal. Unable to spot him, she grabbed onto her 5-year-old seat mate, Kameron Price.

"I was kind of lost," Jeisy recalled. "I really didn't know what was going on."

She said she suffered a compressed fractured vertebrae and herniated disc from the accident. She goes to a chiropractor once or twice a week and also uses the breathing techniques she's learned to reduce the daily pain, she said.

"It was kind of hard at first to move on from it," Jeisy said of the collapse. "I don't think [other people] knew what we went through."

Reclaiming normal lives

It was clear on a recent afternoon that life at Waite House continues per usual, with its din of laughter and scheduled activities: tutoring, computer games, dodgeball and arts and crafts.

At any given time, children who were on the bus went about those activities without a peep about the bridge collapse. The everyday programs are an unplanned antidote to reclaiming their lives.

"I think it's just wonderful," Kameron Price's mother, Delena Price, said of the combination of therapy and regular programs. "[It's] definitely a benefit just keeping the kids close with each other and active."

One afternoon Itati Ariza, 9, and her cousin Naomi Genis, 8, slapped glue-soaked newspaper onto yellow balloons to make a piñata. Nearby, Kameron threw a handful of newspaper strips into the air. All three were on the bus. Itati recalled falling and hitting her head.

"There was a fire," she said. "Everyone was crying. I was scared."

Itati is rambunctious and outgoing and has Cleopatra-style bangs; she said she's doing OK now.

Price said her son wasn't physically hurt, but has a fascination with replicating the collapse by banging objects together to make loud noises.

"It's hard," she said. "He's having some issues."

Although Graves thinks it will take years for the children who were on that school bus to recover, she doesn't want them labeled as "the bridge kids."

Part of the recovery is to engage in confidence-building activities that have nothing to do with collapse, such as a service trip to Mexico in April.

"That's one big thing we're looking at," Graves said, "empowering the youth to help themselves."

Chao Xiong • 612-673-4391