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Outdoor Club extends help to Louisiana community
The Yellow Ninjas slept in a blown-out building in the billowing
heat. The exterior walls were gone.
During the day the group tried to help the locals in whatever
ways were most needed: cleaning up, making repairs, interacting
with the children.
The “Yellow Ninjas”—it sounds like a team from
the “Survivor” reality show—is a group of volunteers
from Pellissippi State’s Outdoor Club who traveled this
summer to Buras, Louisiana, to offer post-Katrina support.
Like “Survivor” participants, crew members did find
themselves isolated, in harsh, unfamiliar surroundings, but their
overall experience was far more positive.
“An extraordinary bonding experience.” That is how
Mary Bledsoe, Student Life and Recreation director, described
the five-day end-of-the-school-year trip.
The 15 club members who participated in the volunteer effort did
what they could to help the residents of Buras, a community an
hour and a half south of New Orleans that has seen only 30 percent
of its population return.
Hurricane Katrina actually made landfall in the Buras area, says
Bledsoe, and the area is still in shambles nearly two years later.
The Yellow Ninjas stayed in what was left of the YMCA, working
alongside other college groups recruited by a relief organization
called Emergency Communities.
Each morning, the Pellissippi State team would decide how best
to spend its time.
Emergency Communities offered a free laundry facility—according
to Bledsoe, the only one within 12 miles—and distributed
free food and clothing and household goods. The organization served
residents hot meals three times a day, and provided an Internet
cafe and a community meeting area.
The volunteers staffed each service and worked on off-site projects
as well.
“The local residents,” said Bledsoe, “contacted
Emergency Communities for assistance with various tasks and projects,
like gutting a house, picking up trash, and planting and weeding
gardens for the elderly.
“We helped a resident named Manny get electricity hooked
back up to his mother’s house,” she said. Other off-site
work included digging trenches for sewer and water connections.
Some of the students spent time with children at a Federal Emergency
Management Agency trailer park.
“There were 450 trailers 12 feet apart from each other on
an old baseball field,” Bledsoe said. “It was enclosed
with chain link fence and barbed wire and had security 24 hours.
The Pellissippi State students did crafts and games and gave the
children a lot of love. They worked with them to improve their
language and politeness.”
“It was different,” said Jared Agresta, who’s
in computer science. “The residents lived in a different
world with a different life than I’d ever seen before.”
He describes the park as prison-like, with a fence and security
guards. Some of the children had problems with anger, says Agresta.
“But when we got to know them, they were good kids.”
The Pellissippi State team played hide-and-seek, touch football,
and baseball and did puzzles and face painting with the children.
Cassia Davidson worked with Agresta at the FEMA trailer park.
“There wasn’t grass anywhere, only gravel,”
said Davidson, who plans to transfer to Middle Tennessee State
University for fall semester. “The trailers were so close
together you could hardly park a car between them. They were like
RV trailers, not like home trailers. There were all these energetic
kids with nothing to do.” Of all the activities the Pellissippi
State team took part in, she says, the kids liked the face painting
the best.
“The experience was absolutely amazing,” Davidson
said.
Christie Davis, a student in electronic media, agrees.
“It was probably one of the greatest experiences I ever
had in my life. I didn’t realize how bad things were there
and how much the people still needed help.”
“The volunteers’ level of willingness was absolutely
amazing,” Bledsoe said of the Pellissippi State students.
“We didn’t have any apathy, complacency or laziness,
or any disagreements. It was one of the best bonding experiences
I’ve ever had with a student group.
“They [the students] were all so willing to work no matter
what they had to do. It was kind of like the Tennessee Volunteers—they
really earned their name.”
So what about that name? Yellow Ninjas.
“Kim [Thomas] and I had decided to call our group meetings
‘Tribal Councils,’” Bledsoe said. “At
the first Tribal Council meeting, at 6:30 a.m. Monday, we asked
the group to think of a catchy name for our group. Nothing was
decided.
“When we arrived at Emergency Communities, we heard that
the resident volunteers were curious about who was coming down
to Buras.… They had only heard rumors that it was a large
group, but didn’t know where they were coming from or who
they were.
“So they made up stories about the impending group’s
arrival. One of the stories they created was that we were a group
of Ninjas from the North, because we were coming late at night
after most were asleep. We sneaked into camp and set up our tents
very quietly! They nicknamed us the Ninjas. Once we heard that
story, we decided to name our group the Yellow Ninjas, because
we all had specially designed yellow T-shirts indicating we were
from the Pellissippi State Outdoor Club.”
The idea for heading to Louisiana was the vision of Outdoor Club
President Bobby Nicholson, a recent Pellissippi State graduate
who is transferring to Maryville College. The Outdoor Club voted
to make the trip a reality and then worked to get approval from
the Pellissippi State administration to raise the money to go.
“The club had several fundraisers prior to the trip down
there,” Bledsoe said. “They raised $1,500 to give
to the Buras community. Student Life and Recreation paid for the
travel expenses, and students contributed $35 each—$5 for
a T-shirt and $30 to donate to victim relief.”
Nicholson, Bledsoe and Kim Thomas, Student Life coordinator, organized
the trip, and Bledsoe, Thomas, faculty member Ron Bridges and
Admissions employee Debbie Petty served as advisors.
“Every evening we would gather as a group,” said Bledsoe.
“We would talk about the day, how it had impacted us, what
we were learning, what we were feeling. Part of the Tribal Council
was to recognize what each other had done. Volunteers would comment
about how they were inspired by so and so because he was on the
job from the beginning to the end.”
The trip wasn’t all work, however.
“We had lots of playtime,” Bledsoe said. “We
stopped in New Orleans on the way down and on the way back up.
The students got to experience the French Quarter and beignets
[a deep-fried pastry].”
The Louisiana trip was limited to 20, says Bledsoe, because only
three vans were available. The next trip, however, will be open
to many more.
The Outdoor Club’s next excursion has been dubbed “Tennessee
Back Roads,” and is scheduled October 12-15. Students will
work with Habitat for Humanity in Scott and Morgan counties. The
group will stay in a dormitory-style cabin in the Big South Fork
National River and Recreation Area.
For information on the upcoming trip or the club, contact Student
Life and Recreation at 694-6555.
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