Students Embark on Fall Break Relief Trips

Students Mel Baars (top left, moving clockwise), LaTashia Hicks, Jen Durst, Laurel Redding and Dock Voorhies spent fall break rebuilding a house in Mobile, Ala., devastated by Hurricane Katrina

On a drizzling, gray Friday afternoon in early October, 35 students carrying backpacks and hauling suitcases assemble at Duke University’s Chapel to board a charter bus bound for Mobile, Alabama.

The students, representing a mix of backgrounds, majors and interests, are coming together to spend their fall service team will reconstruct a house demolished by Katrina. During their stay in Mobile, the team will set up camp in the fellowship hall of a local church.

In preparation for the trip, each student coursed through an intensive disaster response training class that covered topics such as appropriate intervention techniques and sensitivity to victims’ needs to the importance of teamwork.

Craig Kocher, assistant dean of the Chapel, said, “It is a testament of the quality of students Duke attracts, students who use their fall break to do some hands-on good and to engage with one another around the existing issues of race and poverty that Katrina further exposed.”

Team leader Michelle Shrader added, “My number one goal is for us to be present with the people in Alabama who are suffering. We want to sit with them, hear their stories, and show them that we care. Beyond that, we’ll do whatever is asked of us.”

Jen Durst, a senior chemistry major was one of the first students to arrive at the Chapel. Asked about what motivated her to spend her fall break in service, she said, “When disaster strikes, it’s important to put down what you’re doing and realize there’s a sense of community that you have to respond to. We’ve been given the opportunity to do a beneficial service to those who have been victimized by tragedy.”

The fall break trip is the first of several evolving service trips by students and others to hurricane-affected regions. Additional relief trips are being considered over winter break as well as part of a possible spring course that could examine topics related to Hurricane Katrina and the national response coupled with a spring break service learning trip.

Katrina stands as the second catastrophic disaster in the past year that has galvanized the student body to respond with exceptional resolve. Half way around the world, The Indian Ocean Tsunami that struck last December wasn’t far enough away to go ignored. Students held fund-raisers and prayer vigils and took part in educational seminars and blood drives to show solidarity in the wake of surreal cataclysmic destruction.

And at Duke, Tsunami aid efforts continue. Just this past August, five students affiliated with Engineers Without Borders traveled to Banda Aceh on the island of Sumatra to help reconstruct shrimp hatcheries that sustained the way of life for villagers in nearby Lamnga.

But the proximity of the Gulf Coast hurricane inspired students, faculty and staff to react even more passionately and, in a few cases, without restraint in their efforts to lend assistance.

Soon after the hurricane hit, three Duke students who were increasingly growing frustrated by what they perceived as a sluggish federal response, set out for New Orleans to help. The students slipped through blockades using falsified press passes, penetrating the ravaged city with no clear idea what to do or how exactly to assist. They simply felt they had to do something— anything. The three ultimately extricated a handful of people stranded in New Orleans, reuniting them with family members in safer, dryer outlying areas. Upon their return to campus, some labeled the young men heroes, while others painted them as impetuous youths. Following a whirlwind of press attention, including major coverage by CNN and other national media outlets, the students elected to stop taking national media interview requests and return to normalcy.

In another part of campus, Chronicle editor Seyward Darby (see p. 2) and two members of her staff piled into a car in mid-September to embark on a 16-hour trip to Southern Mississippi.

In a Sept. 15 Chronicle editorial, Darby wrote, “In the small town of Waveland, Miss., there was too much to see—too much heartbreak, devastation and charity—to let my eyes close. There were homes reduced to piles of wood, mud and scattered furniture. Tattered American flags wrapped around broken trees. Collapsed bridges submerged in the ocean. National Guard trucks parked in an abandoned playground. Power lines twisted around mounds of debris.

“There were exhausted pregnant women waiting to talk to FEMA representatives. Small, sunburned children digging through boxes of donated food. Soldiers with AK-47s patrolling the desolate area. Church volunteers doling out home-cooked meals by the thousands. Doctors rubbing the backs of sobbing storm victims. As I wandered around, recorder in hand, playing the role of dutiful reporter, I felt thrown into another world.”

Back at Duke, students pursued more traditional relief efforts. Duke Red Cross organized a highly successful blood drive, collaborated with Residence Life and Athletics to collect funds in residence halls and at football games, and initiated a Mardi Gras bead sale fundraiser to channel dollars to those in need.

DSG worked with Duke Dining to allow students to donate food points. A cap of $5,000 was reached within days of the effort, but flex dollars are still being accepted toward a $7,500 goal.

The Duke Scholars community recently kicked off an initiative for students and families taught by many Robertson Scholars this past summer in New Orleans. Julian Robertson, founder of the Robertson Scholars Community, agreed to match up to $70,000 of what the Duke and local community can raise for the Erin Anderson Fund—a fund for students and families of low-income families that attend a summer educational enrichment program for six weeks and one weekend per month throughout the school year. Duke students Evan Stewart and Andy Cunningham (both ‘08) taught there throughout the summer and have formed close relationships with the families and students. If successful, the fund-raising effort will provide a $140,000 pool, ensuring on average $1000 for each of the 150 families on behalf of which the students are working. Funds are going toward school supplies, shelter, transportation costs, and food.

Meanwhile, events have been planned and held across campus at dizzying speed. Light rain didn’t dissuade volunteers from turning out to support one of the most successful events in mid-September—a supply drive organized by Duke Law students called “Stuff the Truck” which aimed to funnel much-needed items to Louisiana residents. By the conclusion of the event, the truck headed for Louisiana cities where hurricane refugees had gathered, was—literally—stuffed, with 16,000 pounds of supplies.

Perhaps the most compelling and enduring relief effort pursued by Duke University’s community was its decision to enroll more than 60 displaced undergraduate, graduate and professional students from Gulf Coast institutions who hailed originally from North Carolina or South Carolina or who had a familial connection to Duke faculty members, students or alumni.

Once they arrived, Student Affairs staff and students welcomed them warmly. Members of the First-Year Advisory Counselor (FAC) Board were enlisted to provide personal assistance to each new student—from campus navigation to help completing necessary forms and registrations. Orientation sessions were held for displaced students introducing them to the community.

Finally, a group barbecue was held to help the new students connect with one another and members of the Duke community.

Tulane senior Dwight Blass, one of more than 50 New Orleans-area students currently enrolled at Duke, is no stranger to service or leadership. At Tulane, he has volunteered to assist cancer patients and elementary school students in need of tutoring and even helped a community center in financial despair apply for grants.

In a recent story published on Duke’s News Office web site, Blass said, ““It took me three years to learn how to get things done, learning who to talk to, who to know, becoming a student leader. Now I feel like a freshman again. It’s humbling.”

In the month since Katrina hit, the flurry of activity at Duke surrounding hurricane relief has calmed and become more focused. A Gulf Coast Response Task Force, which first assembled one month ago to discuss the university’s response and ongoing efforts, continues to meet weekly but has shifted its conversation to exploring more long-term relief opportunities: myriad educational options for the Duke community, service trips to affected regions, and the formalization of the task force in anticipation of future natural disasters.

Back at the bus headed to Mobile, Michelle Shrader performs a headcount of students assembling, oversees last-minute logistics and even pauses very graciously to help this writer capture a photograph of a few of the students embarking on what could be a trip of a lifetime.

Said Shrader, “There is so much to learn from this situation. This disaster exposed issues of race and economics that simply must continue to be discussed. My hope is that as we enter into relationships with people who will be very different from us that God will be at work developing a sense of vision for a different way of living.”

— Eric Van Danen