Ask any organization how you can contribute to its hurricane relief effort and the answer will be the same: We need your time and we need your money. Time and money, however, seem to be the two things that college students are most short on. Luckily, there’s a wide range of venues, both on and off campus, through which even the busiest student can show support.
The Red Cross reports that it has signed on 135,000 volunteers nationwide. While some chapters have been inundated with offers, the Middlesex Chapter in Middletown is still looking for human services, in addition to monetary donations.
As part of the Give Hope Now Initiative, The Red Cross will pay for eligible volunteers to travel to affected regions and administer aid in shelters.
Oliver Smith, a local volunteer who recently spent several weeks working at a shelter in Bayou Labatre, AL. He said that shelter workers find many ways to be useful throughout their long days.
“We feed all the people, we talk to them, we help them, ask what they need,” said Smith.
In order to qualify, volunteers commit at least two weeks and take an online Disaster Services training course. Most important is the volunteer’s preparedness for an experience that is both physically and emotionally grueling.
“People need to be physically and emotionally ready to deal with what they encounter,” said Brenda Simmons, executive director of the Middlesex Red Cross chapter. “You encounter people who lost not only their houses but family members.”
In addition to the shock of confronting the survivors, volunteers should expect ten to twelve-hour workdays, no electricity or running water, modest accommodations that often include the shelters themselves, and a sweltering climate.
“You need to be able to lift 50 pounds, eat the same food that the disaster victims eat, because we can’t accommodate dietary needs,” Simmons said. “The first batch of people had to be very hearty.”
Smith, a veteran disaster relief volunteer, expects that the conditions, even more than the victims’ stories, are likely to catch newcomers off-guard.
“Prepare yourself for a lot of hard work,” Smith said. “I didn’t get a day off until after twelve days. There’s a lot of bad conditions. This isn’t a vacation.”
According to Cathy Crimmins Lechowicz, director of community service and volunteerism, several students from a larger relief coalition are planning to visit affected areas over winter break. The group, led by Sarah Reed ’08 and Isaac Hunnewell ’06, is still researching which organization it wants to work with, as the Red Cross cannot guarantee volunteers will be placed in the same location.
According to Lechowicz, the group will not know their assignments until late October.
“It’s too far in advance to know what they’ll need help with,” said Lechowicz.
Although students will not be able to spare at least two weeks until December, they can be sure that their help will still be needed then.
“We’re looking for volunteers to help out these families in January, February, and on into the New Year,” Simmons said. “Unfortunately, people will be there that long.”
Simmons predicts that the demand for volunteers will spike just as students are able to commit enough time to visit affected areas.
“A lot of people will be reluctant to go away during the holiday season,” Simmons said.
Simmons prefers that people interested in helping donate their time and money, but not their possessions.
“No food, no clothes,” she said. “We would get inundated with people bringing things. And then there are bigger issues around sizing and cleaning.”
For those unable or unwilling to make the trip down to the Gulf Coast, Simmons suggests organizing fundraisers back home.
“The other thing is trying to get some organization around donations,” she said.
Most students’ relief efforts thus far have focused on fundraising.
Faith Serrano ’07 plans to auction used textbooks on ebay.com, and donate all of the proceeds to the relief effort. Boxes will be set up in the libraries, pending approval from the librarians.
“Being involved in this relief effort is very important to me,” said Serrano. “I think there is a lot of fulfillment in knowing that we’re not confined in a secluded, comfort space in Wesleyan, that we’re actively engaged and responsive to the changes in the world.”
Other ideas on the table from this student coalition, who will not have an official name until it registers with the Student Budgetary Committee, include a dance-a-thon, a pageant, a Mardi Gras event in MoCon, a bracelet sale, a benefit concert, a poker tournament, and crepe and Halloween stands.
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