Trip to New Orleans 'overwhelming' for all All of us who spent a week down in New Orleans walked away from one of the best experiences in our collegiate life. We sacrificed nine days of the warm showers and home-cooked meals of winter break to serve the residents of New Orleans. There we camped on the premises of New Orleans' giant public city park near Tad Gormley Stadium along Canal Street, which provided a prime opportunity to help needy residents.
Campus Crusade for Christ, a student group I belong to, partnered with Good News in Bad Places, a relief organization that has provided service and gospel sharing for post-occupied Iraq and tsunami-ravaged Thailand.
During our stay, law enforcement was in full force, as some of the students found out on their first night. Some students who left the premises after curfew ran into aggressive officers on patrol. A police officer stopped to question the group, and after two minutes, 15 other cars surrounded them. The students were on the ground and handcuffed - and reminded curfew is indeed enforced. During the rest of the week, OU students stayed out of trouble by assisting the need to feed.
We cooked and served hundreds of warm meals, entertained children, evangelized in neighborhoods and even assisted at a Habitat for Humanity site. Although Katrina struck the city four months ago, the damage was still unending. Scattered piles of trash, overturned cars, abandoned boats, uprooted trees and dead animals still engulf the city. As we toured the Ninth Ward, the blocks of devastation looked apocalyptic. A giant barge that broke one of the levies still rests in the street and on top of homes. It was overwhelming for us all, even to the point of altering our moods. People from surrounding states, as far away as North Carolina, were driven to visit the site themselves, seeking pictures and personal accounts. The Ninth Ward had become the Ground Zero of the Gulf Coast. We took in all we could from residents and other volunteers, many of whom had come from across the country.
Greg Gaspard, a construction worker who visited the tent where we were serving food every day, shared his optimistic outlook for New Orleans. Still, he was concerned with the day-to-day pressures of housing his family. This gave me real-life context for the damage and encouraged our work.
Another resident, Noel Domingo, was a mother dealing with providing for the kids and talking to insurance agents on the phone. Rebuilding her life requires knowledge
discernment and patience she said. Nancy Landers, a volunteer from Boston, spent two weeks volunteering for the Red Cross because she couldn't watch the coverage and not do anything. Lorain Tharp, a volunteer from Colorado Springs, Colo., discovered a new experience of persevering after being hospitalized for sickness after sleeping in a tent in New Orleans. She had refused to leave because she had to give this city (her) support since the damage is worse than (she) ever imagined
she said.
The long-term volunteers knew that you could visit New Orleans and ignore the devastation of Katrina. However, they were impressed with our short-term hard work, and even more so that college students from Ohio took time from their winter break to assist this need. I can honestly say being a part of this was the best thing I did in college and my life. - Kenny Miles, a fifth-year English student, has pictures of his trip on his Facebook profile.
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Kenny Miles
