Work & Thanks
59 volunteers spent their Thanksgiving in New Orleans
By Ben Baynton, staff writer
Posted on December 4, 2006

When Katrina hit last summer, Kai Orenic wanted to do something, but couldn’t — at least not until this last Thanksgiving Break. This was the first time a group from JMU went to New Orleans.

“When the chance came, I had to take it,” said Orenic, who is a lead teacher at the English for Speakers of Other Languages School, which is part of JMU’s Career Development Academy.

Orenic, and 58 others decided instead of taking a break from the stress of school and work, they would volunteer for a week in New Orleans. The trip was organized by associate professor Mary Slade and sponsored by the College of Education at JMU. 

“I knew that was exactly how I wanted to spend my Thanksgiving — helping people and giving them the Thanksgiving they deserve,” senior Rachel Halpin said.

All the volunteers had to pay nearly $400 for the trip south. Some had already gone to New Orleans, but this trip was the first time for others.

“It was something new, challenging, and I was able to lend a hand in cleaning up the most devastating natural disaster in United States history,” freshman Justin Broughman said.

The students who had gone before had not actually been into New Orleans, where standing water had destroyed houses and annihilated whole blocks. They had been working in places that had seen storm surges.

“I knew that it would be just as bad as last year,” sophomore Stephany Herzog said. “But for some reason I was expecting a big change and things to be better, but they weren’t and it was disheartening.”

It was not only JMU students on the trip, though. Yuniel Vanega-Silvera and Erianne Vasquez, students from the Career Development Academy, also went with the group.
 
The CDA is a university institution that helps educate English learners in the community in language acquisition, literacy and career development, according to the academy’s Web site.

“I went because I like to help people who have problems,” Vasquez said. Vasquez emigrated from Cuba two months ago.

In order to raise the money necessary for the trip, Vasquez and Vanega-Silvera sold baked goods and T-shirts and auctioned handmade meals.

Family members and some local high school students also went with the group.

The first night they stayed at Camp Hope, in Violet, La. — a base camp for volunteers. It used to be an elementary school outside of New Orleans before the hurricane. After leaving Camp Hope the next day, the group stayed in cabins at Fontainbleau State Park. Fontainbleau is across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans.

Then the real work began.

“My group cleaned out a home in St. Bernard Parish,” Broughman said. “By ‘cleaned out,’ I mean taking out all the of the belongings, removing all of the flooring and sub-flooring and knocking down all of the drywall.”

On Wednesday, the whole group prepared food for families in the area. They produced more than 5, 300 meals that day.

Work didn’t stop on Thanksgiving Day for the group, though.

“On Thanksgiving, we spent the day finishing up jobs from earlier in the week,” senior Emily Burt said. “The afternoon was spent serving meals to residents who didn’t have the means to have Thanksgiving in their homes.”

 Although they were working all day, the volunteers were changed by their surroundings — especially Herzog.

“Every emotion comes out,” Herzog said. “You are sad because of all the lives lost and how things haven’t improved. You are angry and upset because not much has been done, and people are forgetting before any change has taken place. You are mad at the government for their lack of help. You are mad at the insurance companies that all they care about is money.”
 
What brought the reality of the situation to the volunteers was meeting and talking to the few residents that were in New Orleans.
“One man told me about the six days he spent on a roof waiting to be rescued,” Orenic said. “Another story played out the exact opposite. A local law enforcement officer disobeyed orders and made numerous trips to rescue people that may have died otherwise.”

Many students came back feeling as though they were not ready to leave just yet.

“It is hard to leave knowing that there is so much left to do,” senior Taryn Goodwin said.