Volunteers listen to victims' stories, find meaning in work

BILOXI, Miss., -8:19pm

Bob Rands commanded the eyes of every volunteer when he stood up in the dining tent last evening to give the Camp Biloxi orientation. Rands, the camp manager, is a Vietnam veteran. He was sporting a crew cut; his hair--grayish white. He donned an intimidating camouflage jacket paired with blue jeans. And when he began to talk about Camp Biloxi, everyone was at attention.

Then I noticed his Reebok sneakers—the same kind my dad would wear, and I think I saw him a flash a grin. His eyes pierced through his wire-rimmed glasses, making sure I heard what he said about the black widow spiders we might run across (Unlikely, but possible. "And don't flip 'em over to see if they're a black widow. Sheesh. I've got stories").

Rands didn’t stick around long after the orientation to chat, but he voiced what was probably the most valuable piece of advice for relief and recovery work, and it had nothing to do with getting up at “oh-600 hours” for breakfast, which everyone at Camp Biloxi is asked to do. He didn’t even talk about the various rebuilding and cleaning projects that we began this morning. Bob Rands advised Ole Spring Relief III volunteers to simply listen.

“Treat the clients with respect and dignity,” Rands began. “Listen to their stories. That’s even more important than doing the work.”

Perhaps an odd thing to tell a large group of volunteers who traveled some 1100 miles to work, Rands meant every word. And he was right.

Today on the work sites, students got their first listen to the stories of Lutheran Disaster Relief clients and other community members in three different areas across the region: Moss Point, Gulfport, and the Hayward neighborhood in Biloxi. And if we didn’t listen to the story of one family in the Forest Heights community of Gulfport, we may not have understood the importance of the work we were helping them do.

Forty-one-year-old Patrick (last name unknown) was helping his younger brothers load furniture, pictures, and appliances from their mother’s one-story, three-bedroom home into a “pod” when our work group arrived at about 9:30am this morning. A pod is a PODS (Personal On Demand Storage) unit, and they decorate the front lawn of nearly every other house we saw in the Forest Heights neighborhood.

Hasty rebuilding efforts on Patrick’s mother’s house failed to recognize that the electrical wiring encased behind new sheetrock had also been damaged in the storm. Today, the house had to be completely cleared out so that later this week the walls can be torn down and wiring problems fixed—the right way this time. According to Patrick, the sheetrock needs to be replaced anyway, as there are traces of mold growing behind the walls, of which only the bottom four feet were replaced after sustaining water damage resulting from Hurricane Katrina's violent rains.

Students carried everything out of the house, from mirrors and bed frames, to dining chairs and curio cabinets, all the way down to the mini blinds. Everything looked new and in mint condition, as Patrick’s mother and his brothers had moved back to Forest Heights, where they’ve lived for over 30 years.

With only a handful of screwdrivers, and no dolly until after 12noon, the workday for this group went in waves. This is when students had the chance to rest their muscles and use their ears.


“There was definitely a point in the day when the work died down and we were just standing in the kitchen, listening to Pat,” said Ryan Anderson ’10. “He told us how Mississippi really got the brunt of the actually storm. He said New Orleans was really damaged by the flooding, but that here there were 130 mile per hour winds for 12 hours straight.”

The wind blew the roof off Patrick’s mother’s home, allowing rain and elements to get inside and damage her belongings. He told the group of Oles that he is currently doing detail work on homes in the region so that he can have more time to help take care of his mother’s house. Patrick said he has been employed for 20 years as a stagehand at a local casino before the storm hit.

“[Pat] talked a lot about the importance of people getting back to work and not just taking handouts from volunteers,” Anderson said. “He got back to work.”

* * *

At another site today, students spent their time cleaning streets. Yes, really. In Moss Point, Miss., the city decided that if they were going to rebuild their town, they’d have to cut back on other services generally provided—like street sweeping.

“People would drive by and honk and say, ‘Thank you for being here,’” according to Tony Paterno ’09. “One lady rolled down her window and drove down the street telling each person, ‘Thank you. God bless you. Thank you…'.”

Although a lot of today’s service done by OSR3 participants differed greatly from the house gutting and demolition work completed by groups the past two years, meeting and speaking with hurricane victims and residents is what made the often tedious work meaningful for students.

“It’s not the fact that we’re doing work,” Paterno told me after dinner tonight. “It’s that we're acknowledging that work still needs to be done down here, and we are here to support the community and realize that not everything is back to normal.”