Students lend a hand while in New Orleans

T. J. ROYAL
Staff Writer

May 15, 2008 10:57 am

— A group of Edgecombe Early College students attended the Middle College National Consortium's annual Student Leadership Conference in New Orleans last week. Of the 25 early colleges who participated, Edgecombe Early College was the only rural institution.
The nine Early College students prepared a service project for their trip, which they presented at the conference. They also did hands-on reconstruction work during the trip.
Tenth-grader David Chaney said the theme of the students' service project in New Orleans was unemployment. Brent Bryant, technology facilitator with the Early College and a chaperone on the trip, said the students' goal is to help 1,000 New Orleans residents in their search for jobs.
Chaney said that if an individual was looking for a job, but did not have the skills to prepare their own resume, the students would get together their information, edit it and prepare it for the person.
Pam Gould, Early College guidance counselor, said the students' hands-on experience involved landscape work for a church and two houses.
Eleventh-grader Antwuan Barnes said he worked long hours "diggin', turning soil, gettin' roots and throwin' 'em away" for a 25-year-old man's house. Barnes said the man was very appreciative to have the students help him with his yard, so much so that the man was ready to cry because of the assistance.
Gould said that when they did the landscaping for the church, it seemed "a little backwards" to be working on the building's appearance instead of its interior. That church was ready to have Sheetrock placed on its walls and was still in the renovation stage, Gould said.
But church officials explained that improving the building's exterior would attract people to attend the church, Gould said.
Between the conference and their service projects, when the group traveled through New Orleans, one image that stood out was the concrete porches that dotted large sections of the city. They were the only remains of residences washed away by the August 2005 hurricane.
Gould said that a monument in the shape of a porch was placed between the upper and lower sections of New Orlean's Ninth Ward district. What it represented, she felt, "was the spirit of the people in the Ninth Ward.
"It represented their culture, that people sat on their porches, they waved to everybody that came by in their neighborhood. They knew everybody, and it was their social activity," she said.
When they interacted with New Orleans residents, Gould said the group "kept trying to make that connection" between the Tarboro students' experience with Hurricane Floyd in 1999 and New Orleans residents' with Katrina.
She felt everybody related to the residents on a personal level, that they shared a sense of loss from the hurricanes.
Ninth-grader Maggie Edwards said before the trip ended, she had met strangers on a train who were willing to tell her about their experiences. "It was really sad to talk to people about what happened" during Katrina, Edwards said, especially when one middle aged woman approached her and told her about losing her husband to the flood waters.
"I told her that we had (Hurricane) Floyd, but it's not nearly as bad, and we're still trying to bring ourselves back up. And, it just shows you how devastating it was, that (Katrina) hit New Orleans," Edwards said.
Gould added that Edgecombe County's experience with Floyd did not compare to the level of devastation from Katrina.
"We still had a hospital to go to" during Floyd, Gould said, while New Orleans residents did not have a single one open, out of the nine operating before the storm hit. Almost three years after the flood waters have receded, Gould said only three hospitals are operating in the city.
"There were (still) people living in tents underneath (a) bridge" when they went on their trip last week, Gould said.
To her, the students had trouble understanding what it meant to have that magnitude of homelessness years after a catastrophic event. "They thought you could scoop those people up from underneath the bridge, and go put 'em somewhere and they'd stay," Gould said.
"...The rebuilding piece is so massive (from Katrina), and when asked 'where do you begin?', it was all different answers" coming from the Early College group, Gould said.
The New Orleans trip was expensive for the students, $800 apiece, but most of them said they would love to return to help people affected by Hurricane Katrina.
Tenth-grader Sharod Fenner said he would love to go back "because you can see the need for help.
"I would love to be one of those people down there, helping get them back on their feet. It would be one small, little action but it's actually helping them a lot, because they're very appreciative of what people do for them," Fenner said.
That appreciative spirit did not just come from New Orleans residents, but from the city government too.
The Early College students had their own special Mardi Gras parade on May 9, complete with beads, masks and brass bands. The streets were blocked off, and the 250 students and 50 chaperones participating in the conference were given a police escort along their parade route.
"We couldn't have floats, so we made hats that signified our service project" for the conference, Gould said.
This year's conference trip was focused on New Orleans, but to the students, there was more to the event than assisting Katrina victims.
Ninth-grader Erika Turner said the conference was not just learning about people from New Orleans, "it's learning about people all over the United States" and learning their cultures.
"You get to know very diverse people; it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience," Turner said.
Chaney added that the conference was much more than any workshop. "It's more fun than workshops, really. I would recommend to anyone, if they're in an early college, to join the conference. It's life-changing."

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