Monday, December 19, 2005
Students will be helping with hurricane cleanup work in Alabama.
By HAROLD GWIN
Vindicator education writer
YOUNGSTOWN -- Most college students from this region look forward to spending holiday time at home or traveling south for warm weather after finishing fall final exams.
Two Mahoning County students enrolled at Bowling Green State University are traveling south during their break, but it won't be for relaxation.
Tristan Ula of Poland and Danielle DeWitt of New Middletown have joined 50 other Bowling Green students to help victims of Hurricane Katrina in Mobile, Ala., who are still recovering from that storm.
The group, accompanied by four Bowling Green staff members, left Saturday and will return Dec. 22.
The volunteers will spend about four days helping to tear waterlogged flooring and walls out of homes that were flooded by the August hurricane; build a home with Habitat for Humanity; distribute donated toys; and, in smaller groups, spend time one evening with two "adopted" families.
Bowling Green student government leaders, recalling the Falcon football team's trip to Mobile for the GMAC Bowl last December, suggested that the university adopt the city after Katrina hit. More than $5,000 was recently raised on campus for the Red Cross there.
A step further
The fund-raising efforts led to a suggestion to do more than send money and the trip was planned, said Clinton Stephens, coordinator of student organization and community service programs in the Office of Campus Involvement.
Students were eager to participate.
On the first day they could sign up, 34 students, including Ula, a sophomore marine biology major, and DeWitt, a freshman actuarial science major, were waiting outside the campus involvement office at 8 a.m.
"I was one of the first people there. I really wanted to go," DeWitt said, explaining that she had heard that a line would be forming early and that space was limited.
This will be her first experience on this kind of mission, DeWitt said, explaining that she has received much help from people during her life and this is a chance to return the favor.
"I was there at 6 a.m. ready to go," said Ula. She has been on a mission trip before with the youth group from her church, Poland United Methodist. It will be a good opportunity to help people, she said.
Both women said their families are supportive of the trip.
During an orientation program Dec. 3, two psychologists who have been in the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast area told the volunteers to expect an emotional impact and to take care of themselves and each other, Stephens said.
"I actually got more and more excited about going after the meetings we had," Ula said. "I think we'll be able to handle it."
A 15-hour ride took the volunteers to their base, a Presbyterian church camp about 37 miles outside Mobile, where they will sleep in cabins and get three meals a day. The group will divide into four teams to handle their assignments.
"The help the students are going to provide to these families is tremendous," Stephens said, pointing out that, with no government agency aiding the cleanup, the residents are doing it themselves and with contractors' help. He also noted that though many of them are living with relatives or elsewhere now, the families will be there while the group does its work.
Ula, a graduate of Poland High School, is the daughter of Bob Ula and Joann Russo of Poland.
DeWitt, a graduate of Springfield High School, is the daughter of John and Cindy DeWitt of New Middletown.
gwin@vindy.com