Bonner Scholars assist in Katrina cleanup
By Michelle Hershman, L'07
Student Assistant, University Communications
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Bonner Scholars sort cleaning supplies in Hattiesburg, Miss., during fall break.
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Sarah Potter, '08, still has not recovered from her fall break. Unlike most University of Richmond students, she did not travel home to visit with family and friends. Nor did she spend her break catching up on school work or just relaxing. Instead, she joined the sophomore class of Bonner Scholars on a service trip to Hattiesburg, Miss., to assist in the Gulf Coast cleanup efforts.
"My blisters are still there, and I can still see the destruction in my head," Potter said during an interview in November. "I hope it doesn't go away for a long time. I want to remember what I saw and how I felt while I was serving."
Bonner Scholars usually participate in a service trip to Caretta, W.Va., as freshmen, but last year's trip was cancelled due to overbooking at the site. The class voted the night before spring break last year to do their service trip during fall break. When the students heard about the devastation in the Gulf Coast, they decided the hurricane-stricken area needed their assistance more than any other region.
On Oct. 14, Potter and 23 other Bonner Scholars, along with Bonner Scholar Coordinator Grace Holcomb and Jepson School Associate Dean Teresa Williams, began their fall break by piling into three vans to drive 900-plus miles to Mississippi.
After the 18-hour overnight drive, the students arrived early the next morning and began working immediately.
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Bonner Scholars clean a house in Mississippi
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"The first day they just dove in, knowing they were only there for a short time," said Holcomb, who works with Bonner students throughout the four years they are at Richmond. "They wanted to do whatever they could do in that time."
Dressed in heavy pants, face masks, goggles and work boots, the students spent the day with Lynn, a 10th-grade English teacher who had lived in the same house for 30 years.
"When we pulled up in front of her house, it looked like only a couple of trees had fallen on her roof, but when we walked inside we were shocked," Potter said. "You couldn't see the effects from the outside."
For the next five hours, the group split into three teams and took care of tasks ranging from throwing away debris to pulling down drywall and removing insulation.
"It looked like a different place when we left," Potter said. "Lynn cried, thanked us and offered the shower in the small apartment she managed to acquire for us to shower in. I'll never forget what we did for her."
Showers were not always easy to come by on the five-day trip. The Richmond students were sharing only three showers with another service group at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church, where both groups were residing.
"Each day we woke up relatively early in comparison to those [times] sleeping in back on campus," said Corrie Mixon'08, a Bonner Scholar. "We'd wake up, change into our work clothes and fight for elbow room at the sinks while brushing our teeth in the small downstairs bathrooms shared with another group from the College of Charleston."
The crowded conditions didn't slow the students down, Holcomb said.
"They worked together and supported each other in ways that made me even more proud of them then I already am."
During the next two days, they drove to devastated coastal areas such as Waveland and Long Beach.
"I thought I was prepared to see the coast, but when we crossed the railroad tracks in Waveland, I knew I wasn't ready," Potter said. "People are living in tents in the WalMart parking lot, using port-a-potties two months after the hurricane. Walking through the debris was heart wrenching-passing a shoe, a book, a picture-this made it real."
Potter and Mixon, along with the other scholars, were so touched they decided to return and serve again during spring break. They want to include the entire Richmond community in the opportunity. The students have developed a steering committee to oversee plans for a return trip.
"This area especially has not received as much publicity as New Orleans, but some of Mississippi was hit worse by the actual storm and now remains a state of disaster," Mixon said. "Their spirits as a community press on, but it really does look like their towns have been forgotten."
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