No place like NOLA

JMU students, faculty and community members team up for third Thanksgiving Katrina relief trip

By John Sutter, contributing writer
Posted on November 29, 2007

Freshman Julie Gaven shared Thanksgiving dinner with a Hurricane Katrina survivor named Michelangelo in New Orleans.

Michelangelo and his wife, son and mother were nearly trapped in their attic as water rose in their home during the 2005 storm. They managed to escape during the eye of the storm and sat on their roof throughout the remainder of the storm.

“It’s just incredible to hear what they have gone through,” she said.

Last week 105 JMU students, high school students and faculty traveled to New Orleans to volunteer with the College of Education. 

Even though it has been 27 months since Katrina hit New Orleans, many people are still living in FEMA trailers, houses have not been gutted and much of the residential area is still uninhabitable. 

JMU has sent five groups to New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005. Junior co-leader Justin Broughman went to New Orleans last Thanksgiving and said that this year the group did more rebuilding than in past years because reconstructive efforts have taken precedence over simply gutting homes. The number of participants nearly doubled from last year’s 56 volunteers.

“It is something that some can actually make a difference on,” Broughman said. “People are generally interested on this campus in helping other people.” 

The volunteers worked with the National Relief Network gutting buildings, starting reconstruction and helping serve Thanksgiving Dinner to approximately 1,000 community members.

“I don’t think anyone else could pull this off as well as the JMU community,” said faculty co-leader professor Mary Slade. “We believe in educating our students by filling their hearts and making them good students.”

Some participants said they feel that since the national media has left the city, people are beginning to think New Orleans is getting back to normal. 

“[It’s] just an amazing experience to get to go down there and see everything in person because you totally don’t get the whole story from what we are told in the media,” Gaven said.  

Broughman said that the infrastructure is there and businesses like McDonald’s and Winn Dixie are open, but there are still thousands of homes that need to be gutted.

 “It’s the outside where the people live that needs to be addressed,” Broughman said.

 Places like the French Quarter, the Financial District and Downtown are back up and running, but areas like the 9th Ward are just open fields now and many places in the outlying areas are still in desperate need of assistance.

On the first and second days of the trip, a group worked on gutting a medical center in Chalmette.

“[It was] amazing to see progress and change and the impact we made over the two days,” Gaven said.