The Kernodle Center for Service Learning “Break for the Bay” fall service trip was a resounding success in several ways. Details…
Story by Cathy Hefferin
Photos by Jerome Sturm
University Relations
When 40 Elon students, faculty and staff members left for Bay St. Louis, Miss., for their fall break to provide relief to victims of Hurricane Katrina, the exact plan for the next few days was unknown. They were told to “be flexible.” It was the best advice they could have.
“I didn’t really know what to expect,” says Carolyne Byrne, a freshman biology major from New Haven County, Conn., who plans to become a physician’s assistant. “We didn’t know what could happen, but it’s fantastic,” she says. “It came together very well.” Byrne’s team spent the first day in Bay St. Louis cleaning up inside and around the community center at Our Lady of the Gulf Catholic Church. But her favorite part was the interaction with the people in the area. “We met a guy last night, Elroy, at the volunteer food shelter who had two houses down here and they were both destroyed,” she relates. “He was the kind of person you wish was your grandfather.” Byrne, who is on the swim club and is involved in area council at Elon, has been active in various volunteer opportunities since she first gave blood on her 17th birthday.
In contrast, Dave Jenkins, a senior from Ramsey, N.J., hasn’t been involved in service work before. He decided to apply for the trip “because it was the right thing to do.” Jenkins says he grew up in an area of New Jersey that was affected heavily by the 9/11 attacks. “That tragedy has kind of opened my eyes a little as far as the need for volunteer man hours,” he says, “and it really does make a difference.”
Team assignments were rotated daily with students doing everything from helping rebuild and clean up the community center and grounds to sorting clothing to cleaning toilets, but plans were changed as different needs arose. The Elon students initially unloaded the truck of relief supplies that the Elon community had gathered at Our Lady of the Gulf Sunday morning so parishioners could pick up supplies after church. Then the truck was loaded again and driven out into the neighborhoods, where students handed out supplies to people working to clean up their property. The groups made direct contact with several families as they helped them clean up the debris left by the storm surge.
Emily Dillard, who applied and was accepted as a co-leader for the trip before the destination was determined, said this fall break service trip was quite a bit different from the usual ones. “It’s usually seven students, two student coordinators and one faculty advisor,” she says. They had been reviewing several ideas for service trip destinations when the hurricane hit. When over 100 students applied for the 30 slots in the Break for the Bay trip, their job became harder. “It was difficult for us to choose because there were so many good applicants,” says Dillard. “We had friends that applied. We had to be objective about it. But it was good training for later in life.”
Dillard, who is from Pfafftown, N.C., says service “is something my parents instilled in me” at an early age. She remembers delivering Thanksgiving dinners with her father and younger sister. She recalls a time when her mother walked into an alley in Washington, D.C., to talk to homeless people. “I could see it in my Mom’s face,” she says. “Just because people don’t have the same things as you do, there is no reason to be afraid of them or to not to show compassion.”
Alexa Darby, assistant professor of psychology who is new to Elon this year, says she decided to join the group because she is hoping to organize a Winter Term course in which students will complete “oral histories for the families here who lost everything.” Darby was one of three faculty members and five staff members who made the trip, pitching in the cleanup efforts alongside the students. “This is just me,” Darby says. “I’m not the kind of person to just sit around.”
Katy Franck, a junior sociology and human services major who grew up overseas, says she loves service for a lot of reasons. Her family usually spends a very untraditional Christmas helping out at an orphanage in Thailand. “I have so much, my health, my family,” she says. “I want to give back.”
Dillard feels the group accomplished a lot in Bay St. Louis, but there is still much to be done. “We’re one grain of sand on all the beaches of the Gulf Coast. If everyone contributes a grain of sand, then we can build a beach,” she says. “It is definitely something that can’t be forgotten.”
Service trips to the Katrina-affected areas are being planned for Winter Term and spring break.