Hippies fail to hamper helpers
Xavier students overcome oddities to assist Katrina victims
Darren LaCour
Senior News Editor
Alternative Breaks
Not even asbestos, cockroaches and hippies could spoil the AB trip to Buras, La.
Xavier’s Alternative Breaks (AB) program allows students to travel to numerous locations across the country and spend their vacations helping those in need. This past spring break, AB trips traveled to Atlanta, the New Orleans area, Colorado, Nashville and even Jamaica. All the groups had tremendous experiences, making new friends but more importantly making a difference in the lives of the people they touched. One group in particular, which traveled to Buras, La., underwent quite a remarkable turn of events.
Buras is a small rural community on the Gulf of Mexico, about an hour away from New Orleans and most other civilization. The community was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, and Xavier’s AB crew gutted houses, cooked and served meals and volunteered at local schools. “They aren’t rebuilding the levees there, so people are rebuilding without insurance. They’re doing it for familial traditions, and because it’s home,” explained freshman Anna Russell, who participated on the trip.
These things may seem typical to most service trips, but the Buras team also had to deal with a long list of oddities, including hippies, asbestos, rats, cockroaches, black mold, mice, Porto potties, wild cats and dogs, Animal Control, FEMA, unattended convicts, six month expired food and floating tents.
Junior Kyle Wynk, one of the site leaders, said, “Asbestos was falling on us like snow.”
The group was working with an organization called Emergency Communities, which the United Way sponsors for one year then leaves the communities on their own. “We started to run the site we were at,” said senior Megan DeLaney, the other site leader, who explained that the self-proclaimed hippies who were permanently working at the site seemed much more interested in napping and reading.
Alternative Breaks
A part of a separate AB trip to Louisiana, senior Andy Freeze was one of dozens of Xavier students to help rebuild the New Orleans area.
The work site had fallen into disrepair, and a good portion of the AB team’s service was spent at the Emergency Communities site, where they moved the kitchen and washed dishes. After the Health Department shut down the site on Thursday due to three pages worth of health code violations, the team worked extra hard to correct all the problems.
“I didn’t feel like I led this trip since it was so crazy,” said DeLaney. “I felt like we all just worked at it together.”
The experience was no doubt hectic and unpredictable, but the participants all really enjoyed themselves. “It reaffirmed the need for organization and structure in the gulf,” said sophomore Jennifer Sands. “It was awesome that we were able to meet the need for the week.”
Although they were exposed to less than desirable living conditions, Russell pointed out, “We lived in this for a week, but these people are still living in this. This is their life.”
Sands continued to praise the AB experience, saying, “It’s a wonderful opportunity to get to know a bunch of people that you never would have gotten to meet and then you get to know them very intimately.”
Overall, Russell calls her trip to Buras a “beautiful, life-giving experience.” Adds Sands, “I’ll definitely be doing AB again next year.”
John LaFollette
Editor-in-Chief
Rachel Peters
Ann Tassone
Darren LaCour
Senior News Editors
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