Logan residents help clean up Louisiana
A team of four Utah Conservation Corps members returned from a month-long volunteer project in Louisiana Saturday.
The crew helped with construction, maintenance and environmental tasks along the North Shore of New Orleans – an area devastated one year ago by Hurricane Katrina.
“It was good hard work,” said Tim Ross, the crew’s leader.
The crew stayed on the Big Branch Marsh Wildlife Refuge from Oct. 8 to Nov. 10 where they helped with environmental projects like clearing research trails, planting marsh grasses and trees, rebuilding fishing piers and creating perimeters around endangered species’ habitats.
The refuge lost 80 to 90 percent of its pine trees in the storm, Ross said, and excessive salt water deposits threaten to destroy some of the trees that are left.
The group’s focus was on restoring habitat in the refuge, but they also served the people of the area.
One project helped a struggling school known as the Lafayette Academy. Around 150 volunteers showed up for the project called a “kaboom build” where a playground was constructed in one day.
“That was probably the most rewarding thing,” Ross said.
Volunteers from Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the Minnesota Conservation Corps and children who attended the school and their parents worked alongside the UCC crew members, building an 80-foot by 60-foot playground in a matter of hours.
“It started out with just holes in the ground,” said crew member Tom Ogilvie. “It went from nothing to an entire playground.”
The school was just reopened after it was closed due to financial restraint. Monkey bars, swings and slides were built in the struggling neighborhood, Ross said.
In all the areas they served, the group said they saw a lot of damage and ruin even a year after the storm.
“I didn’t expect to see so much destruction,” Ross said.
Houses still had “Help” painted on the roofs, trash and waste was everywhere.
Crew member Caitlin Laughlin said concrete slabs that used to have homes on them now have “steps going nowhere.”
“We met a lot of people who lost everything,” Ogilvie said.
Crew member Ford Chancellor left the group for a week to help a man move back into his house in Waveland, Miss. He said the man bought him lunch one day, a gesture which was all he could afford.
The crew worked with people who were in the area when the hurricane hit. Laughlin said she heard of a man whose home collapsed and three others floated onto his property.
They described their experience as surreal at times when they saw things high-rise office buildings in the city’s downtown with broken windows. A lot of work remains to be completed, Ogilvie said, and disorganization doesn’t help.
“FEMA screwed up,” he said.
A lot of the work was physically demanding, but Ross said he didn’t mind since his purpose for going was to “sweat a little bit and give some volunteer work.”
Ogilvie said he felt it was his civic responsibility to go and help.
“I don’t have money to send these people, but I can send myself,” he said.
Laughlin, who graduated from high school in the spring, said going to do volunteer work meant a lot to her.
“I was absolutely desperate to go on this trip,” she said.
All of the group members agreed that the excursion was a positive, rewarding experience, though some were glad to be back.
“I missed the mountains,” Ogilvie said.
The project was coordinated by the National Association of Service and Conservation Corps and was funded by Americorps.
The UCC is in its sixth year of operation and plans are in the making to send another crew to the gulf coast next summer.
Ross said he hopes more people get involved. By joining the UCC or by contacting Americorps, people can have their food and housing taken care of while they volunteer.
Laughlin said manual labor isn’t the only way people can help. Children sit in school auditoriums because there aren’t enough teach and basic civic servants like firefighters and police officers are needed as well, Ross said.