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Feb. 18, 2009
Approximately 15 Morningside College students are forgoing traditional spring break activities in order to travel to Lake Charles, La., to help repair and reconstruct homes damaged by 2005’s Hurricane Katrina or more recent hurricanes that have impacted the area.
Led by the Rev. Kathy Olson, Morningside chaplain and director of church relations, the student group will leave the college campus after classes on Feb. 27 and then drive to Lake Charles, which is Sioux City’s sister city in Louisiana. The students will work through the Volunteers in Mission program of the United Methodist Committee on Relief to repair or rebuild homes in the area. The student group plans to be back in Sioux City on March 8.
“Several Morningside students taking part in this trip to Lake Charles have participated in other hurricane relief efforts,” Olson said. “I think it’s to their credit that our students take time from their spring break – when they could be spending time with family and friends – to help residents of areas still struggling to recover from the effects of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.”
This is the fifth relief trip that Morningside students and staff have made to hurricane-damaged areas along the Gulf Coast. In the spring of 2006, a Morningside group helped with cleanup and reconstruction efforts in Picayune, Miss., which was devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. That trip was followed by other mission efforts in Lake Charles during the spring of 2007; Beaumont, Texas, during Christmas of 2007; and Metairie, La., during the spring of 2008. Morningside students also traveled to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in the summer and fall of 2008 to help with flood recovery efforts.
Photos and journal entries will be posted online during the upcoming trip to Lake Charles. To see these updates from the trip, click here.
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