More post-trip thoughts...

Last Easter Sunday, I talked to Tim Fuller '10 about why he came on Ole Spring Relief this year.

"I was on the fence about coming," Fuller said. "But I heard registration was filling up fast and would be closing, so I just did it. I feel like I have this obligation to do something. We just had a break at the end of Interim. We're so separated from these things. It's incredible to be able to come down here and realize how blessed we are up there [in Minnesota]."

I asked Fuller what he was looking forward to about OSR3.

"I'm excited to get working, actually," he said. "We've been on the bus for 24 hours. We spent a day in New Orleans, a day here in Biloxi and at the beach. I love to travel, and for cheap. New Orleans and the South is a different culture and to be able to experience that is pretty cool. I'm looking forward to interacting with folks, seeing firsthand Southern hospitality, hearing stories. I'm anxious to get to work; that's what we came down here for."

* * *

We've now been back "home" on campus for over 24 hours. Fuller sent me a post-trip e-mail about his experience on OSR3. Here it is:


One of the biggest differences between this year and last was the type of
work we were doing. Last year I spent much of the time doing demolition work and building the foundation of a new soup kitchen in Slidell[, Lousiana]; this year most of my time at work was spent sweeping and cleaning up the streets of Moss Point[, Mississippi].

At first I was a little dissapointed because I thought there would be less opportunity to talk with locals and also because I felt as though sweeping the streets wasn't as meaningful as some of the other work we could have been doing. Despite my initial apprehensions, the work turned out to be more fulfilling than expected and we encountered many locals in the neighborhoods in which we worked. People driving by were always honking and waving and many stopped to thank us and ask if we needed water, several businesses even offered us free refreshments to show their appreciation. One man walked with us as we picked up trash along the street and told us about his Katrina story and of the destruction the storm left in its wake.

Overall, I think our work was an important step in the reconstruction and revitalization of this town and it really did make a difference. Despite the differing circumstances, this year was just as fulfilling as last and once again it was the people we met and their stories that made it that way.

"First Year" reflections from the bus ride home

SOMEWHERE IN IOWA - 11:35am

On the bus ride home, two First Year students (Morgan Harden and Signe Knutson) saved me a seat in front of them. I'm not sure if they realize how uncool I actually am yet, but while I had a captive audience, I used part of the time to convince them that this blog I'm working on is cool, too. I asked each of them to contribute their own post--a reflection on the work we've just completed on the Gulf Coast and the experience as a whole. Here's what they had to say:


Harden: I came on this trip to gain perspective. At St. Olaf, I live a life of luxury. Everything I want is within my reach—a roof over my head, food in my stomach, friends surrounding me. The people affected by hurricane Katrina didn’t have these luxuries after the hurricane hit, and some still don’t have them. I feel it my duty to help those in need because I have been so fortunate. I expected to see destruction. I expected to also see the beginning processes of rebuilding. I expected to see people sad and depressed. I did see destruction. I helped in the rebuilding. But I didn’t see sadness and depression. I saw people united and stronger than ever before because all they had were each other. My favorite part of the trip was while we were painting an elderly lady’s house. She was so grateful and so happy to see young people working so hard to help her, and knowing we were doing this out of respect and not for our gain. My least favorite part (considering there really wasn’t a part I didn’t like) was having to get up so early. My perception on the victims of Katrina changed to one of respect and admiration for their strength and commitment to themselves, each other, and the country. I don’t know if I can say that I’ve necessarily changed on this trip, but I definitely feel that I have done something good and for the right reasons. Without a doubt, I would go on this trip next year. And I would go for the same reasons I went this year—to give of my time to those who need it most.


Knutson: I came on this trip to give of my time. I wanted to help those in need and make a difference in the lives of the victims of Hurricane Katrina, if only for a short week. I wanted to give of my physical capabilities to those who have lost so much in order to speed up the process of getting their lives back on track. I expected to work hard. I expected to be tired for much of the time. And I expected to broaden my perspective on the effects of Katrina. In many ways my expectations came true, but there were also so many factors that made this trip more into an experience rather than just a service trip. My expectation of hard work was accurate, but I did not anticipate the kind of work we would do. My favorite day was when we had to gut a house. Basically, a group of about fifteen of us walked into what seemed like a completely finished, but empty, house and assumed that we would be possibly moving in furniture or doing some other odd house jobs. Instead we were given gloves, safety goggles, mouth covers, and hammers and were told to tear down the walls and ceiling because there was water damage within. It was amazing and liberating. There is something about smashing into a wall with a hammer that just frees you of any stress. Tearing down walls does come with downsides. The cleanup was labor intensive and meeting a group of cockroaches was not uncommon. However, nothing could take away the greatness of demolition. My favorite part of this trip [was meeting people]. Relationships were a huge part for me. Getting to know the victims, my fellow Oles, and the leaders, all combined to make every minute of this trip a worthwhile experience.

Heading home

BILOXI, Miss. - 8:33am

Students are packing their bags and sweeping out their cabins. It's time to go home. The balmy 70-degree weather has given us all a taste of summer three months too soon. Most are not looking forward to going home to reports of a snow on the way, but after a week of hard work and waking up in a pool of our own sweat (did I mention the intense humidity?), I think we're ready to get back to our "normal" lives. But we will miss Camp Biloxi, and most definitely the culture of the Gulf Coast and Southern hospitality that we've grown to love.

Last night we did what locals do when Spring arrives--we built a bonfire on the beachfront. Three busloads of Oles covered the beach and we all roasted marshmallows, ate s'mores, and enjoyed one another's company. It was a wonderful and appropriate way to end our week working on the Gulf Coast.

Last night I asked my cabin-mates if they wanted to share anything on this web-log about their experience. One of them, Erin McHugh '10, had this to say:

This trip has given me the opportunity to see the true strength of people faced with tragedy. Before now, I was aware of the damage in both Biloxi and New Orleans to homes, roads, and entire towns. I saw the news and the pictures of concrete slabs where houses once stood.

However, being here and seeing it all firsthand two and a half years later has shown me that structures were not the only things destroyed. Memories, treasures, and whole lives were broken. But in spite of all the devastation, somehow, a sense of determination and hope has managed to perservere throughout the community. Everyone is willing to do what needs to be done to bounce back. They believe they can do it, and, because of that belief, they will.

The area has retained its culture and spirit. The buildings are just structures. They will be replaced.


My bunkmate, Kelsey Harr '10, also wanted to share about her experience - she kindly left out the part about my snoring:


I really feel I got much more out of this experience than I had ever imagined. Before the trip, I had only the pictures of devastation from books, newspapers, and TV. But when we took our tour of Biloxi, the images I had in my head didn't match in reality.

Yes, there was rubble in many places, but not everywhere. What I didn't expect to see was the brand new community in the process of being rebuilt. It wasn't just your average community, though. It was a place made on new hope and strength. What impressed me probably the most was the help of volunteers who put their time and effort into making the hopes and dreams realities.

As a volunteer myself, the appreciation and smiles on the faces of residents will stay with me forever. Helping people get back on their feet brought me so much satisfaction and I will definitely do it again.


* * *
I’m being summoned to the buses which have just arrived. We’re departing Biloxi for our first stop in Jackson, which should be about lunchtime. More to come…

Happy helpers do some dirty work

BILOXI, Miss. - 11:54pm

Before supper tonight in the dining tent, I joined a table of four young women who I had been working with all day. They were snacking on Chips Ahoy cookies and French onion-flavored Sun Chips, and just chatting about their day. I may be one of the adult staff on this trip, but I didn’t make a remark about spoiling their dinner. After all, they’re responsible college students, and after working under the blazing Mississippi sun all morning, then moving to a second worksite to help gut a house, they deserve a more than a few treats before dinner.

The foursome, Kirby Norris, Amy Berntson, Lauren Vandeventer, and Kenzie Huffman, all sophomores, came on this trip together. They also live in the same sextet together in Larson, and all four just found out they got accepted to live in the same honor house next year. Their project will focus on organizing activities and events for seniors and others in long-term care and assisted living situations. And by working along side these gals for a day, I can tell they all have a genuine heart for service, especially helping those who have had unfortunate circumstances seriously affect their lives.

I asked them to tell me how their day went:

“At our first site today, off Beach Road in Biloxi, we were cleaning up the property of a woman whose house was destroyed by the hurricane,” Norris said. “She’s just now rebuilding.”


When I asked these students questions about the property owner, they all began to chime in. Duane, the site overseer from Lutheran Disaster Response, made sure to tell the volunteers about the work they were completing, making each job a little more personal. It obviously stuck with these young women, as they all began recalling details:

“She was supposed to move out of her FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] trailer and into her house last November,” Vandeventer said.

“The first contractor to rebuild her house backed out, and now the current one has been away because of a personal family [matter],” Norris explained. “He’s not working fast enough because he’s been away.”

“Which is frustrating for her because she’s running out of money,” Berntson added. “And she’s starting to have lung problems [believed to be] related to formaldehyde.”

When I stopped the conversation to inquire further about the property owner’s lung problems, the girls began talking about FEMA trailers. Later, I scanned a few documents from the FEMA webpage and found out that air pollutants from commonly used building materials, such as formaldehyde, affect air quality, and can cause respiratory problems and allergic reactions to those who are most sensitive to the colorless gas. Disaster housing was only designed to be a temporary shelter for hurricane victims, but as of last July when FEMA released a document entitled “FEMA: Formaldehyde and Travel Trailers,” the actual air quality conditions in FEMA trailers when lived in for extended periods of time and under “real-life conditions” had not yet been tested (http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=36730).

According to the same document, “All new, unused and unventilated travel trailers have formaldehyde in them. The concentration of formaldehyde can be reduced significantly by ventilating the units by running fans with open doors and windows…When FEMA learned about concerns about formaldehyde, it took steps to inform occupants about proper ventilation*, facilitated the exchange of trailers, provided alternate forms of housing when requested and available and initiated air monitoring and sampling plans.”

*“Important Formaldehyde Information for FEMA Housing Occupants” http://www.fema.gov/pdf/media/2007/072007_formaldehyde_handout.pdf

The young women I spoke with to don’t yet have this information from FEMA. All they know is that the woman whose yard they cleared today has lived in the travel trailer on her property for over two years. They know that she is ill and that she is suffering financially from things that seem beyond her control. And so they helped in any way they could.

“We cleaned up her yard to clear the way for the next step,” Berntson continued after our formaldehyde tangent. “We basically did a little work for the contractor so trucks can come in and haul away the rubble and beams and scraps and trash that we bagged and piled and pulled out of her [unfinished] house.”


Bag after bag of Styrofoam insulation was cleared from the property today and placed at the curb for (hopeful) removal.

“We aren’t experienced contractors or anything,” Vandeventer said of the work they completed. “But every little bit counts. I think we bring hope.”

And even though these students didn’t get to speak with the woman whose yard and building site they cleared, they know their efforts were appreciated.

“Right as we were finishing up, a man drove by and thanked us,” Huffman said. “He said he used to live across the street and he knew that [the property owner] was very grateful for us being here.”

One day work day left of OSR3! Check back for more stories!

Photo Album

Is that a St. Olaf student under all that protective gear? Sure is. It's sophomore Amy Ny working from the rafters of a home in Forest Heights, Gulfport, Miss. earlier today. Students "gut" a house, leaving only the frame and studs. Ole Spring Relief Committee III member Chris Peterson '09 suits up to haul sheetrock and insulation out of the house his group gutted. Students didn't seem to mind wearing protective face masks and goggles for some of their projects today. In fact, some of them seemed quite comfortable in all the gear. The interior of a gutted house that one St. Olaf group worked on today with Habitat For Humanity's thorugh the Jimmy Carter Project. Habitat usually builds houses, but in cases like this one, where the exterior of the home can be salvaged, the houses are stripped down to the framework so that new walls and wiring can be put in. This is called a "Re-Hab" project.

Ole Spring Relief makes Biloxi news!

A story on how our students are helping clean up Moss Point, Miss., can be found at the following link (there's also a video!):

http://www.wlox.com/Global/story.asp?s=8062550

Volunteers listen to victims' stories, find meaning in work

BILOXI, Miss., -8:19pm

Bob Rands commanded the eyes of every volunteer when he stood up in the dining tent last evening to give the Camp Biloxi orientation. Rands, the camp manager, is a Vietnam veteran. He was sporting a crew cut; his hair--grayish white. He donned an intimidating camouflage jacket paired with blue jeans. And when he began to talk about Camp Biloxi, everyone was at attention.

Then I noticed his Reebok sneakers—the same kind my dad would wear, and I think I saw him a flash a grin. His eyes pierced through his wire-rimmed glasses, making sure I heard what he said about the black widow spiders we might run across (Unlikely, but possible. "And don't flip 'em over to see if they're a black widow. Sheesh. I've got stories").

Rands didn’t stick around long after the orientation to chat, but he voiced what was probably the most valuable piece of advice for relief and recovery work, and it had nothing to do with getting up at “oh-600 hours” for breakfast, which everyone at Camp Biloxi is asked to do. He didn’t even talk about the various rebuilding and cleaning projects that we began this morning. Bob Rands advised Ole Spring Relief III volunteers to simply listen.

“Treat the clients with respect and dignity,” Rands began. “Listen to their stories. That’s even more important than doing the work.”

Perhaps an odd thing to tell a large group of volunteers who traveled some 1100 miles to work, Rands meant every word. And he was right.

Today on the work sites, students got their first listen to the stories of Lutheran Disaster Relief clients and other community members in three different areas across the region: Moss Point, Gulfport, and the Hayward neighborhood in Biloxi. And if we didn’t listen to the story of one family in the Forest Heights community of Gulfport, we may not have understood the importance of the work we were helping them do.

Forty-one-year-old Patrick (last name unknown) was helping his younger brothers load furniture, pictures, and appliances from their mother’s one-story, three-bedroom home into a “pod” when our work group arrived at about 9:30am this morning. A pod is a PODS (Personal On Demand Storage) unit, and they decorate the front lawn of nearly every other house we saw in the Forest Heights neighborhood.

Hasty rebuilding efforts on Patrick’s mother’s house failed to recognize that the electrical wiring encased behind new sheetrock had also been damaged in the storm. Today, the house had to be completely cleared out so that later this week the walls can be torn down and wiring problems fixed—the right way this time. According to Patrick, the sheetrock needs to be replaced anyway, as there are traces of mold growing behind the walls, of which only the bottom four feet were replaced after sustaining water damage resulting from Hurricane Katrina's violent rains.

Students carried everything out of the house, from mirrors and bed frames, to dining chairs and curio cabinets, all the way down to the mini blinds. Everything looked new and in mint condition, as Patrick’s mother and his brothers had moved back to Forest Heights, where they’ve lived for over 30 years.

With only a handful of screwdrivers, and no dolly until after 12noon, the workday for this group went in waves. This is when students had the chance to rest their muscles and use their ears.


“There was definitely a point in the day when the work died down and we were just standing in the kitchen, listening to Pat,” said Ryan Anderson ’10. “He told us how Mississippi really got the brunt of the actually storm. He said New Orleans was really damaged by the flooding, but that here there were 130 mile per hour winds for 12 hours straight.”

The wind blew the roof off Patrick’s mother’s home, allowing rain and elements to get inside and damage her belongings. He told the group of Oles that he is currently doing detail work on homes in the region so that he can have more time to help take care of his mother’s house. Patrick said he has been employed for 20 years as a stagehand at a local casino before the storm hit.

“[Pat] talked a lot about the importance of people getting back to work and not just taking handouts from volunteers,” Anderson said. “He got back to work.”

* * *

At another site today, students spent their time cleaning streets. Yes, really. In Moss Point, Miss., the city decided that if they were going to rebuild their town, they’d have to cut back on other services generally provided—like street sweeping.

“People would drive by and honk and say, ‘Thank you for being here,’” according to Tony Paterno ’09. “One lady rolled down her window and drove down the street telling each person, ‘Thank you. God bless you. Thank you…'.”

Although a lot of today’s service done by OSR3 participants differed greatly from the house gutting and demolition work completed by groups the past two years, meeting and speaking with hurricane victims and residents is what made the often tedious work meaningful for students.

“It’s not the fact that we’re doing work,” Paterno told me after dinner tonight. “It’s that we're acknowledging that work still needs to be done down here, and we are here to support the community and realize that not everything is back to normal.”