 | A local resident looks on as Daniel Weeks '06 and Chris Starko '07 measure boards to be used for repairs. |
Fourteen Yale undergraduates celebrated a non-traditional Thanksgiving together by spending their vacation week helping with hurricane-relief efforts in the badly damaged Gulf Coast region of southeastern Mississippi.
Their six-day trip Nov. 20-25 was organized by the Hurricane Emergency Relief Organization (HERO), an undergraduate student group founded in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The group was hosted by the First Christian Church in Moss Point, Mississippi, where the undergraduates helped with painting, roofing and other physical repairs to three area homes badly damaged by the hurricane.
The participants -- Katherine Connelly '07, Madeleine Gelblum '08, Kathryn Dowling '08, Steven Engler '07, Elizabeth Fiedorek '08, Michael Gousgounis '06, Stephen Kappa '07, Elise Patterson '08, Sheila Rustgi '07, Brian Wayda '07, Stephanie Speirs '07, Christopher Starko '07, Daniel Weeks '06 and Scott Zhu '07 -- contributed nearly 400 hours of volunteer service in Mississippi.
"Like every other American, we were deeply moved by the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina to millions of Gulf Coast residents this fall," says Kappa, who organized the trip. "We felt we needed to do something more than contribute a few dollars to the many worthy charities already in place; we wanted to pitch in ourselves."
Kappa and other organizers worked with a variety of relief organizations, including the American Red Cross, to find and secure a service site capable of hosting and providing work for a large group of volunteers. Moss Point was selected in part because the vast majority of residents did not have flood insurance and could not afford many of the essential repairs.
The Yale students slept in the sanctuary of the First Christian Church using borrowed mats and sleeping bags. They cooked breakfast and dinners as a group, and were treated to lunches and a Thanksgiving Day feast by members of the local congregation.
Starko, a transfer student from Tulane University in New Orleans who is attending classes at Yale for the fall semester, said the trip provided an important opportunity for him to return to his city and serve area residents who were not able to leave. This was his first trip south since he left.
"I'm grateful for all the University has done in welcoming outside students like myself and in raising more than $330,000 in relief funds," says Starko. "Taking part in this trip made me realize how much remains to be done and how important each of our contributions truly is."
Connelly said that her visit to Moss Point, located just east of Biloxi, brought home the severity of the devastation from hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
"I was astonished by the amount of devastation still evident months after the fact, and by the sheer poverty we encountered in Moss Point," she said. "Nevertheless, it was heartening to experience the goodwill and good spirits of so many of our hosts, even as entire properties had been damaged or washed away."
Funding for the trip, including partial coverage of paints and other supplies, was provided as part of the University's ongoing commitment to serve the Gulf region. Additional funding was provided by the participants and outside contributors, with organization support from the Yale College Council. Prior to the trip, HERO had raised over $15,000 for the American Red Cross and other charities in support of hurricane victims.
T H I S
Students spent Thanksgiving
break helping Katrina victims
Kathryn Dowling '08 paints the exterior of a home in Katrina-ravaged Mississippi, where 14 Yale students spent their Thanksgiving break working to undo damage that the hurricane wrought.
The volunteer effort drew Yale students from all parts of the country and overseas, including a few students from affected regions of the South.
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