Since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in August 2005, hundreds of Dartmouth students have made their way down to Louisiana and Mississippi to help communities that were completely wiped out by the massive storm.
"I'd say over 400 to 500 Dartmouth students have come down over the past two years," said Carrie O'Neil '04, who traveled down to Biloxi, Miss., in September 2005, with her friend Kate Gage '05.
"We drove down not knowing what to expect -- I was just compelled" said O'Neil, now associate director of Hands On Gulf Coast.
According to its website, Hands On Gulf Coast is "a disaster response project of Hands On Network," which encompasses over 60 nonprofit organizations around the world. Volunteers are responsible for travel to and from the Gulf Coast, but once there, the organization will feed and house volunteers and find them work.
Janos Marton '04, a law student at Fordham University School of Law, was inspired to help after seeing images of Hurricane Katrina's destruction on television.
"The images from Hurricane Katrina were the most horrific things I'd seen on American soil," Marton said.
While the students who initially went down to the Gulf Coast started by doing manual labor, they later took on more diverse positions.
"As time went on, we all stepped into roles we had more experience with. I was liaison with [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] in the mayor's office and then operations director," Marton said. "I had to organize between 100 to 200 volunteers and all the logistics of getting them into the field."
Many volunteers voiced their frustration that the victims of Katrina are no longer featured in the news, despite the fact that the area is still reeling from the storm and thousands of the victims are still living in FEMA trailers.
Eli Mitchell '10 was so struck by the destruction after her first trip to volunteer on the Gulf Coast that she withdrew from the College for her Winter term to volunteer in Biloxi.
"After my first trip and seeing the devastation and meeting all the people who are absolutely amazing, but [who] can't help themselves, I couldn't get it out of my mind that they were down here needing help while I was taking classes," Mitchell said.
One of the primary jobs for volunteers with Hands On is de-molding houses, Mitchell said.
"It's kind of crazy that 19 months after the storm there are houses that still haven't been touched and Hands On is now the only community service organization that is still de-molding," she said.
In addition to students taking voluntary leave terms to participate in Hands On, there has also been an influx of Parkhursted students in the area.
"I think only because they have the time off, there have been a lot of Parkhursted students in Biloxi. It's something you don't have to interview for but it's a great cause," Mitchell said. "There are a lot of Dartmouth kids here and we all ended up here for the same reason: [to] help people, but with different stories for how we got here."
"Whether or not they've been Parkhursted, I'm glad we can give them an outlet to [volunteer]," O'Neil said, adding that perhaps it should be a requirement for Parkhursted students to do something charitable. "I would encourage people to come down."
Whether helping with Katrina reconstruction or a project elsewhere, O'Neil said that all students can learn something valuable by volunteering.
"Do something you believe in, do something you are interested in pursuing, do something that makes you feel connected to the world you live in," O'Neil advised.
