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March 16, 2006
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Front left to right: Dawn Phelps, Tristan Gray, Tim McCabe.
Back left to right: Mary Turner, Cynthia Gascon, Brenda Alvarado, Lacey Niceswanger, Veronica Vazquez, Brooke Sloup, Kathy Olson, Debbie Noble, Stephanie Willers, Stephanie Reis, and Chris Courtney. Photo courtesy of Dawn Phelps. |
The Morningside College Volunteers in Mission (VIM) Team, which included eleven students and three staff members, spent their spring break scraping, painting, raking, cleaning, and providing other volunteer recovery efforts to survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita living near Picayune, Miss., which is 30 miles from the Gulf Coast. The trip took place March 3 -12.
After traveling 20 hours by van and car, the group stayed at the Family Living Center at First United Methodist Church in Picayune. From there they provided volunteer assistance at several different locations in the area. Some of their activities included scraping and painting the entire outside of the Wesley Chapel near Poplarville, Miss.; taking care of animals and cleaning pens at an animal rescue; and tearing down, cleaning, and salvaging usable materials and personal belongings from private homes in and around Pearlington, Miss.
Kathy Olson, campus pastor and director of Church Relations, coordinated the trip with the Volunteers in Mission organization of the United Methodist Church.
A small group of students helped 87-year-old Elvie Yarbough, an antique collector from Pearlington, recover from
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| Mary Turner, Veronica Vazquez, Cynthia Gascon, Brenda Alvarado, Stephanie Willers, Brooke Sloup, and Chris Courtney on the coast at Bay St. Louis, Miss. Photo by Kathy Olson. |
his home what was left of an extensive collection of antiques. The home had been completely flooded. While his entire collection of antique furniture and knives were destroyed by the floodwaters and a collection of coins was never recovered, the group was able to salvage a significant number of unbroken antique dishes and glassware that were encrusted with mud.
“He was just teary-eyed, watching us uncover and clean up these things. It was really the only thing he had left to show for his many years of collecting,” said Olson. “And we were the first group to come by to help him in all the months since the storms.”
The Morningside group also traveled to New Orleans, La., and Bay St. Louis, Miss., to witness first-hand the devastation from the hurricanes that hit the Gulf Coast nearly seven months ago.
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| One of several destroyed homes in Bay St. Louis, Miss. Photo by Kathy Olson. |
“In some places there were just posts where there were once homes,” said Tristan Gray, a junior from Holstein, Iowa, who is majoring in nursing at Morningside. “Sometimes, people just spray-painted their address on a board and nailed it to a tree to show where they used to live.”
Gray plans to use her experience as part of an independent study on disaster relief efforts for the fall 2006 semester.
In addition to providing physical labor, the Morningside group donated more than 70 pairs of blue jeans and several school uniforms, previously collected at Morningside, to the First United Methodist Church of Picayune. David Lowery, pastor at the church, will distribute the clothing to needy families.
The mission trip was funded by grants from Morningside’s office of Academic Affairs, Student Government, and through personal contributions from each participant.
“It was overwhelming to see all the destruction,” said Dawn Phelps, a senior from West Amana, Iowa. “But the things we did there were very satisfying.”
In addition to Gray and Phelps, participating students included: Brenda Alvarado, senior from Donna, Texas;
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| Debbie Noble and Brooke Sloup clean up debris.Photo by Dawn Phelps. |
Chris Courtney, freshman from Ireland; Cynthia Gascon, senior from Columbus, Neb., Tim McCabe, senior from
Lincoln, Neb.; Debbie Noble, senior from Louisburg, Kan.; Stephanie Reis, senior from Dension, Iowa; Brooke Sloup, freshman from Omaha, Neb.; Veronica Vazquez, junior from Denison; and Stephanie Willers, freshman from Jackson, Neb.
Staff members who participated in the trip included Olson and Lacey Niceswanger and Mary Turner, AmeriCorps VISTA service coordinators at Morningside.
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