Members of the Marquette community got a personal look at the effects of Hurricane Katrina when they traveled to the Gulf Coast to aid in the recovery effort over fall break.

Ten students and two University Ministry staff members traveled to the region and split up to volunteer at two sites near New Orleans. Half of them gutted houses and aided the Red Cross in Kenner, La., while the rest made up a first-response team in Slidell, La.

"We were the first volunteers that they contacted in the area. A lot of Slidell had not applied for FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) or Red Cross aid," said Kevin Arts, a freshman enrolled in the College of Arts & Sciences.

Arts, who was slated to attend Tulane University this fall, was among seven Marquette volunteers who originally planned to study in New Orleans.

The students left Marquette last Wednesday evening and returned Monday night. They spent the night Wednesday St. Louis University in Missouri and arrived in Louisiana Thursday evening.

The two teams stationed in Slidell stayed with host families affiliated with St. Luke Catholic Church, while those in Kenner slept in sleeping bags on classroom floors at St. Jerome Catholic Church, according to Stephanie Treffert, a College of Arts & Sciences freshman displaced from Loyola University in New Orleans who worked in Kenner.

The trip was organized by the Lutheran Student Union, Jesuit University Students Together In Concerned Empowerment, and Teachers for Social Justice. Marquette Student Government provided partial funding.

Though the trip was not affiliated with the Marquette Action Program, it followed the MAP format to expedite the visit's organization, said Ann Mulgrew, assistant director of University Ministry.

Although the volunteers arrived nine weeks after the initial devastation, "it's still as if it were yesterday in many parts of the city," said Mulgrew, who volunteered in Kenner.

They said several scenes they witnessed over the weekend were "paralyzing."

"There was a 60-foot yacht in the middle of the woods. It (looks as if it) was placed there, no broken trees around. It was surreal," Arts said.

He said he saw "a used car lot where 200 to 300 cars were completely trashed."

Students said they spent most of the weekend cleaning up houses and helping residents sift through their possessions to see if anything could be salvaged.

"Even the news didn't do it justice. It was hard to think that two weeks ago I would have been completely underwater here," said Garrett Gundlach, a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences who volunteered in Kenner.

Greg Zissel, a College of Arts & Sciences freshman who worked in Slidell and also planned to attend Tulane, said the desolation was most evident at public houses where body counts were posted on the doors.

However, Treffert said, "even after the disaster they're still proud of the city."

"You're throwing away their lives, essentially, and they're right alongside you helping. You knew that they were upset but they knew what had to get done," she said.

Treffert said it was common for someone to offer drinks or a gift in gratitude for the students' service.

"They're focused on others when there's so much to worry about for themselves," Zissel said.

The volunteers agreed that the residents were confident in the future.

"They've learned to get beyond the paralysis and move into recovery," Mulgrew said, "I was proud of the students' wisdom and respect in dealing with some serious and emotional situations, coming up with that idea of hope rather than negativity."

This article was published in The Marquette Tribune on October 27, 2005.