Some Fairfield students spent their summer working on an already fading golden tan. A group of Fairfield students and faculty members, however, skipped the beach and volunteered to help rebuild a city in need.
Ripping out walls, ceilings and floors was all in a day’s work for the 45-member team who ventured down to New Orleans this past May to help restoration efforts.
According to Meslissa Quan, former assistant chaplain of campus ministry, the trip was organized in response to requests from students and faculty in cooperation with Catholic Charities.
Catholic Charities is a social service network that provides help to those in need with the Disaster Response Office.
Campus Ministry received about 60 applications with spots for 40, Quan added.
“We really wanted to do all we could in response to Katrina,” she said. “We tried to send as many people as we could.”
Director of the Writing Center Beth Boquet, who hails from southern Louisiana, was among the professors on the mission.
According to Boquet, their main objective was to gut houses in which the elderly and disabled had lived.
In doing so, these residents would be eligible to apply for federal aid.
Though the Fairfield team only stayed in New Orleans for a week, Boquet extended her trip to continue helping.
“What we saw happening in New Orleans – the kind of poverty, vulnerability, desperation – I think we could see in any of our major cities,” she said. More importantly, “New Orleans makes truly unique contributions to our culture.”
The memory that resonates most with Kevin Neubauer ’05, who worked as a co-leader on the trip, was “seeing the lower ninth ward,” he said. “It was sobering.”
While describing the state of the city Neubauer said, “Talking to people who haven’t left, the first thing that you notice is their resolve.
The people we met through Catholic Charities were putting in long hours to try to rebuild their city, and they didn’t seem at all daunted by the enormous amounts of work left.”
Although many months have passed since Katrina hit, help is still needed, said Fairfield graduate student Enrique Iturralde. Iturralde, who was also a co-leader, had trouble describing New Orleans.
“It’s sad. It’s hard to put into words,” he said. “It’s hard to understand why more hasn’t been done.”
Iturralde said his most vivid memory from the trip was meeting the homeowners.
“It made you really want to do the job,” he said.
As for returning to the city, Iturralde said he would revisit “in a heartbeat.”
Boquet agreed.
She plans to take a sabbatical in the spring and return to Louisiana to do service work and visit family.
According to Director of Campus Ministry Fr. Michael Doody, S.J., Campus Ministry is not planning another trip to New Orleans for this year.
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