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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2005 > October > 31 > Entry
Pitching in for Katrina cleanup
By Scott Elliott
Dayton Daily News
Scott Elliott selliott@DaytonDailyNews.com
Wearing plastic gloves and a white dust mask, high school student Kristin Myers-Young was shoveling gobs of wet, moldy junk out the window into big, stinking piles of mess to be hauled away by wheelbarrow.
In the yard, Janice — the woman who grew up in this house — was struggling to reclaim a moldy, water-stained bedroom door from the junk pile and waving Kristin over to help. They pulled it loose and flipped it over, revealing a large carving on the door’s front of Jesus Christ crucified.
“My dad carved that,� Janice said, looking through swollen, red eyes. “I can’t get rid of it. I know I’m an old, crazy Southern lady, but I just can’t get rid of it.�
It was then that Kristin understood what they were really doing that weekend in Pascagoula, Miss.
“We were throwing out years of memories,� she said. “We spent a day and a half throwing her whole childhood out the window.�
Practically from the day Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Miami Valley schools have been raising money, collecting supplies and filling trucks with food and water.
But now, as the hard work of reconstruction really begins, some area high school students are going further, visiting the devastated areas, seeing it all firsthand and pitching in with their own sweat and muscle.
Along the way, they’re learning life lessons and discovering something about themselves and their place in the world.
About 10 students from the Dayton Early College Academy, an experimental city high school on the University of Dayton campus, just returned from a trip to the coastal city of Pascagoula. And earlier this month, about a half-dozen kids from Stivers School for the Arts made a similar voyage to Hattiesburg, Miss.
Even weeks after the storm, the devastation is shocking, Stivers senior Alicia Simmons said.
“In Dayton, when we have snow storms people clear the streets and make one path down the middle,� she said. “It was like that, except with dirt, trees and debris.�
The Stivers trip was organized by Bert Schroeder, the mother of Stivers junior Megan Schroeder, who persuaded the L.C. Charters bus company and two drivers to transport a group and a load of supplies donated mostly through the school community.
“There were so many little lessons the kids saw,� Shroeder said. “The biggest gift was the spirit of the people down there. They were laughing, smiling and grateful for what they had. They considered themselves blessed. That was mind-boggling to me.�
P.R. Frank, the computer teacher who organized the DECA trip through Aley United Methodist Church in Beavercreek, said he hoped the kids would employ their talents and perhaps explore their career interests while taking part in the relief effort.
And some did, including a couple of kids interested in photography who took pictures on the trip. Others interested in film shot video.
Both the Stivers and DECA groups are planning to create documentary films about their experiences. The DECA kids also kept journals. They earned community service credits, required each year by the school, although most of the students involved already have long records of community service.
The Stivers group is planning to show its documentary film at a fundraising event this year that they hope will include music and dance performance by other students. They hope to raise money for more trips.
Alicia, who will major in premed in college and hopes to be a pediatric surgeon, said she was most affected by her conversation with a woman who had just connected with a teenage daughter. She had become separated during their escape from New Orleans and turned up in California.
“To see a child ripped away from her parents, it really reinforced for me that I want to do something with kids,� she said.
Dainjer Slye, a second-year student at DECA, has long known she wanted a career where she could help others and was considering psychology or social work. But in Mississippi, she saw the difference the Red Cross and other nonprofit groups could make.
“It made me think hard about the people who have these jobs,� she said.
“They help people all the time with disasters all over the world. I’ve thought about a lot of different careers since I’ve been down there.�
Mike Howard, a third-year student at DECA, and Dy’Mand Montgomery, a second-year student, already have well defined career goals. He hopes to be a police officer; she wants a job as an auto mechanic.
But they found they could use their skills to help rehabilitate Janice’s home. After all, cops and mechanics are, at their core, specialized problem solvers.
And they were faced with a tough problem.
Janice’s long driveway was covered with piles of wet leaves, mud and debris that needed to be cleared. It was a big job that probably required a plow.
So, together, they built one. Mike found a garden rake and they lashed it to a large piece of plywood. Six of them then used it to clear the mess. “We had to put a lot of butt behind it, but it worked like a little bulldozer,� Mike said.
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