Local Students Make a Difference in New Orleans
By Heather Gagnon and Katy Purington

Over spring vacation, the Academy at Charlemont sent a bus with 7 students and 8 adults (including two from UMASS) to New Orleans to do relief work.  The trip was arranged by an Academy parent who grew up there.  Our job was to clean up a playground in a badly damaged neighborhood.  We weeded, mowed, cleaned, painted, and replaced boards to make a welcoming haven for families that return. 

We learned on our last day there that our playground had played a part in a decision to site a new FEMA trailer park nearby.  We also volunteered at Benjamin Franklin High School, one of the few schools that has reopened as a charter school.  We worked in their library and planted bushes and even took time out to join a gym class for a soccer game.

Our entire group was shaken by the enormity of the devastation and the impact on the residents.  One in our group noted “I feel angry that the ability to sympathize ‘adequately’ could not be done without physically seeing this with my own eyes” and another commented “it is heart-wrenching to understand that each fallen home represents one uprooted family and each block of broken and deserted homes represents a community destroyed”. 

As we drove past miles of empty homes, we were hailed by one woman who was waiting on the sidewalk because she heard that a crane might be coming to lift up her roof.  Although her house was crushed between two others, she hoped that something would be salvageable.  A car drove up and a friend she had not seen for 7 months emerged.  They embraced and talked about where they were now living, temporarily they hoped, in Baton Rouge and Lafayette. In that moment, we plainly saw that not only were individual belongings scattered in the wind, but so were families, friends and the faces that made up their hometown and their community.

As we listened to people’s amazing storm-survival stories, we could sense their sorrow and often see tears in their eyes.  Near the playground, a man showed us the inside of his home, which he had completely gutted and was planning to repair.  He showed us where his living room, bedrooms and kitchen once were.  Then he showed us his prized possession: a very, very special piano.  He had saved for years to purchase it. He let us press the keys, which were swollen with moisture and stuck.  A parent on the trip said it was one of the saddest sounds he’d ever heard.

We, like the so many other volunteers working there, wanted to show by our actions that people outside New Orleans care.  We left gratified and sobered.  We had worked hard, but our accomplishments seemed small when compared to what needs to be done. 

However, everywhere we went the local people thanked us wholeheartedly and sincerely.  Many of us left New Orleans knowing or hoping that we would return someday.  And with us, we carry the message that help is still needed, volunteers are welcome, and encourage you do to what you can to help your fellow Americans recover from this disaster.