Students find value in helping hurricane victims

But it was much more work than play for the two groups from CSC who helped victims of major disasters in the South.

They came home feeling they had made a difference and were proud of the way they had spent their time away from the campus.

Forty of the students went to the Galveston area in extreme southern Texas to help with the cleanup from Hurricane Ike, which struck the Gulf Coast on Sept. 13, 2008. The others went to New Orleans to help repair the damage done nearly four years ago by Hurricane Katrina.

“Being able to help people in need is a feeling you can’t explain unless you’ve actually done it,” said Janelle Read, a CSC student from Crawford who went on the Galveston trip. “I’ll never forget the week I spent in Texas.”

The Galveston trip was organized and led by Deena Kennell, director of the internship program at CSC. The other sponsors were Jim Sheaffer, longtime political science professor at CSC and a frequent participant in good deeds activities, and Tara Hindman, a CSC graduate assistant. This was the second year in a row Kennell has led a group that helped storm victims. Last year, she took 12 students to Biloxi, Miss., to help clean up the destruction that Katrina had done in 2005.

The New Orleans trip was headed by Sarah Polak, director of the Mari Sandoz High Plains Heritage Center. She also led a smaller group to New Orleans two years ago.

The two groups had different tasks during their ventures.

Those going to Texas did extensive physical labor, such as cleaning up fallen trees, tearing shingles off a roof and knocking down a garage that had been heavily damaged by the hurricane.

In New Orleans, the students helped the Catholic Archdiocese reclaim archival materials and refurbish artifacts that had been soaked by the flood that nearly washed the city off the map when Katrina hit on Aug. 29, 2005.

The Galveston trip worked under the auspices of the National Relief Network, although it did not provide funding. The latter was a mixture of appropriations from several college funds, a grant from the Midwest Consortium for Service Learning in Higher Education, donations from the community and out-of-pocket contributions by the participating students.

Students from Bowling Green University in Ohio and Stonehill College in Boston were in the Galveston area at the same time, but members of the CSC group believe they accomplished the most.

All three groups stayed at the First Baptist Church in LaMarque, turning Sunday school rooms into dormitories. The church even provided cots for the students to sleep on. Showers were available in a railroad box car that was parked nearby.

Kennell said it didn’t take the CSC group long to establish its reputation for hard work. The first day, she said, “We ripped through about four feet of debris that no one had touched since Ike hit there six months ago.”

The second day, the students tore the shingles off a rambling ranch-style brick home after the gale-force winds had lifted them out of place. The owner, a guy named Ray, had remained in his home during the storm, but the four feet of water made most of its unliveable. He now lives in the garage.

“He was very grateful that we came to help him,” Kennell said. “He’s hoping to get the house repaired before long."

The CSC students completed the shingle removal task so quickly that they were able to spend that afternoon on the beach.

The third day also included some fun. The students rode a ferry to Port Bolivar Peninsula, about five miles off the coast, where they cleared five lots of at least a ton of debris that had been washed onto the shore by the hurricane.

Also before heading home, the CSC group knocked down a garage that had been made worthless by the high waters and carried the materials to the curb.

“We saw a lot of buildings that are still structurally sound, but need to be gutted and given a whole new interior,” Kennell said. “Of course, a lot has already been done, but it was such a massive storm that there is still much to do.”

The trip was an amazing experience, in the words of Amy Prince, a student from Hill City, S.D.

“The fact that 40 of us were able to work so well together and how we accomplished so much was phenomenal,” Prince said. “We were given some pretty hard tasks, yet we tackled each one of them.  I feel so blessed that I was able to go on this trip and help out those affected by the hurricane.  I would do this again in a heartbeat."

Another of the participants, Jessica Roit of Ohiowa, Neb., had similar thoughts.

“I have never seen a more profound example of teamwork than I saw while working in Texas,” Roit said. “There is a whole new level of beauty in watching people helping people.”

Similar feelings were expressed by several of those who went to New Orleans, where the work was tedious and time-consuming.

Some of the CSC students had taken classes Polak teaches in museum studies and assisted with chemical treatment of materials and cataloging. The church’s archives, particularly of events such as births, baptisms and marriages, became vitally important after many families had those records washed away.

The CSC students also helped recover regalia, artifacts and statues belonging to the archdiocese.

One of the participants, Jovan Mays of Aurora, Colo., said it would seem that after nearly four years since Katrina hit New Orleans most of the damage would be repaired. But after seeing the city in person, it is easier to understand the situation.

“You learn that sometimes embracing a struggle can help you grasp the severity of the destruction and the remaining after effects,” he said.