Setting: Waveland, Miss., post Hurricane Katrina
Plot: Last fall, Susan Haggstrom approached a group of theatre kids with the idea of aiding the disaster relief efforts in our southern states. Without much hesitation, our “yes-and” improv skills working at their best, nine students and three faculty members headed to Mississippi.
We had been talking about the trip for months. Then, last Saturday we looked at each other with the same face, “So, we are really doing this?”
None of us knew what to expect. None of us had ever built a house or knew exactly what was needed in Mississippi. All we knew were the tool and building skills we had learned from stagecraft class.
However, we were not traveling down south to build a set. This became evident as we drove further away from Fairfield and closer to the affected regions. Houses were totally deserted, left in unlivable conditions.
It was clear that family upon family had fled and not returned to their homes.
With images of destruction in our heads and wearing our infamous Theatre Fairfield shirts reading, “I can’t. I have rehearsal,” we entered into the home base of the Katrina Relief. The organization is run by an ambitious woman named Kathleen, who single-handedly started this organization a year and a half ago, immediately after the disaster occurred.
We were handed a stack of papers with requests from homeowners with need for assistance the evening of our arrival. Southern residents needed all the help they could get, from laying tile to installing windows to painting rooms to building a deck; every day was filled with different people, different necessities and different stories.
All of the circumstances were unforgettably touching. Rocky, the first homeowner with whom we made a connection told a group of us that it must be “something from God” that keeps people coming back to volunteer their time to help rebuild.
Another homeowner, Randy, whose house only exists on its stilts and the entire inside currently gutted, thanked us profusely as we finished building a deck for him. He couldn’t have verbalized his appreciation more than the hundreds of times he uttered, “Thanks, ya’ll, so much.”
There is not enough help being offered to everyone in the Katrina-stricken regions. Kathleen believes recovery will take up to seven years before homes and families are restored, largely due to the lack of consistent volunteerism to the area.
But with numbers of help decreasing as months go by this estimate rises. I think it is safe to say that neither Waveland nor the surrounding areas will ever return to its state pre-Katrina.
To continue our efforts towards rebuilding the South, proceeds from this weekend’s improv shows will be donated to Katrina Relief.
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