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Diverse Group Rebuilds in Katrina's Wake
Stories by Matt Allen
Click to enlarge
Necee Giles
Stan Dotson
Ms. Hattie Mills with Gift
The Crew
They All Came to Work
A diverse group of students and faculty converged on the Mars Hill College Lifeworks office in early March to discuss a simple mission. That mission was to travel to New Orleans, Louisiana to help victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
The purpose of the trip was the only commonality that most of the thirty-three participants had. The students represented all of the groups on campus in relation to sexual orientation, theology, race, religion and all of the other things that divide the world.
The first few meetings were awkward for the students, but an exercise by the advisors on the Thursday night before the trip broke the ice. The exercise was a competition to arrange a group with the most diversity. The prize was a van with more room for the fifteen-hour trip.
The Ford Foundation "Difficult Dialogues" program financed the trip. In the spring of 2006 Mars Hill College was chosen for this grant to promote constructive campus dialogue about controversial political, religious, racial, and cultural issues.
The diversity of the group consisted of black and white, American and international, straight and bi-sexual, liberal, moderate, and conservative, Christian and non-Christian, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Catholic, Pentecostal, and other Protestants.
"We represented a wide spectrum of views, ideas and lifestyles, but we were not divided by our diversity," said trip organizer Caty Carpenter.
The participants had no trouble cooperating. "Our group came together with the common goal of serving the victims of Hurricane Katrina as they attempt to rebuild their homes and their lives, and we were united by our motivation," Carpenter said.
As the students traveled together, worked together, and reflected together, she said, many of them formed lasting bonds with people outside their usual circle.
After the trip was complete, most if not all of the students would call themselves "friends".
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It was a fine Sunday afternoon, eighteen months after Hurricane Katrina. The air had a slight taste of saltwater as 27 Mars Hill College students and six staff members drove across New Orleans during a spring break trip to help hurricane victims.
What they saw when they reached the flood-ravaged Ninth Ward would be for many of them a life-changing experience.
"There was complete silence in the vans as we drove past the houses that once housed a thriving community," one student reflected later. "The pictures on television cannot describe the destruction that was present."
The Ninth Ward, an African American low-income working class community, was completely flooded when levees broke after the hurricane, and it has not been rebuilt. The National Guard marked the few homes that survived with a large spray-painted "X". There are numbers in each of the respective corners of the "X", where the bottom number represents how many bodies were found at the home.
"Seeing the X's on the buildings kind of put things in perspective," said one student, "especially when I saw a number other than a 0 on the bottom."
Before the day was over, the group would find themselves in another world as they visited another part of the city, the French Quarter.
As one student later described it, "I saw two different cities in a ten-mile span -- one that resembles a tourist town and one that resembles a ghost town."
The French Quarter is a popular part of the city for tourists -- and for the members of the group. There is a rich history in this area of music, food, and fun.
"The Ninth Ward and the French Quarter are extremes," said another student. "They seem like two worlds, yet they are only a couple of miles apart. One part of the city can remain intact, and others are completely ravaged."
The Mars Hill College trip, financed by the Ford Foundation Difficult Dialogues program, provided time for students to reflect on these contrasts in an economically and culturally diverse city.
The trip began in the early morning light of March 10 when the group left Mars Hill in a convoy of vans for the long fifteen-hour trip to the Gulf Coast. The journey took them across six states and two time zones. It ended at the "Restoration Embassy: Ambassadors for Christ," which is a church in the downtown area of New Orleans.
Church members welcomed the group with open arms and hugs. The pastor of the church, Bishop Shelton, proclaimed the group "Angels, for coming to help rebuild this city."
The church is a weather-beaten structure of the early twentieth century and is located in a lower income section of the city. "Our church originally had more than 50 members before the Hurricanes of 2005, but today the usual attendance is around ten, and half are my family," said Shelton. "Most of the members are displaced and cannot afford to come back."
In the Sunday afternoon following church services, the group visited the Ninth Ward and the French Quarter. The next day, with assistance from the Baptist Builders of Baton Rouge, they located a neighbor in need. This was the hard-hit area of Slidell, about thirty miles across Lake Pontchartrain.
The neighborhood was mostly comprised of poor, widowed senior citizens. The bulk of the group worked on scraping and painting the exterior of Mrs. Oleander Lester's home. This at times seemed to be slow and painstaking, but the group got the hard job done.
"I feel frustrated. I tell myself that just being here is enough," said one student later. "I feel better and start to have fun. Then I accomplish something."
Across the street a small group worked on insulating and sheet-rocking a family room and laundry room for Mrs. Hattie Mills. This job also tested the resiliency of the workers, but through the days of work, diverse groups of students began to bond.
The work lasted for three full days. Reporters from local papers came by to interview and get the scoop on why a group of college students had given up their spring break to help these people in need.
The ladies of the neighborhood all converged on Mrs. Mills' house at about eleven o'clock to prepare a traditional Bayou treat that was to be remembered. "The red beans and rice, fried chicken and sweet cornbread always attract a crowd around lunchtime," said Mills. A student commented hungrily that, "We may not have been paid in money, but I would work for that food any day."
The generosity of the local residents was overwhelming at times. A student later described the atmosphere by saying, "Love and diversity flows through this city just like the waves that destroyed it."
Most students felt they had made a positive impact. "Although this was just a small drop in the bucket," said one, "it will encourage more volunteers to return to this place that so many people love."
| Student Volunteers | Advisors |
Matt Allen
Todd Allen
Bryson Bettini
Patrick Browne
John Burk
Dwight Bush
Caitlin Ferrill
Brandon Freeman
Christa Gaffer
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Necee Giles
Chris Hewitt
Matt Kupstas
Nick Landers
Chad Lotz
Cece Mangena
Kayla McCurry
Megan Moran
Bryan Moore
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Michael Neal
Ginny Pierce
Jessica Potosky
Kate Prichard
Cassandra Rising
Adrian Edwards
Jaclyn Surgener
Kyle Toman
Kendra Wade
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Mark Norwood
Todd Oldenburg
Laurie Pedersen
Missy Harris
Caty Carpenter
Stan Dotson
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Click for:
A Survivor Tells Her Story
Galleries by Matt Allen and Kate Prichard |
Reader Comment:
Stan Dotson, Dean of LifeWorks, 4/17/07, 9:13 a.m.
Great stories, Matt. Thanks for putting it together. Remember the sayings on the drywall!
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