August 10, 2006 Issue                                       

©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Mount St. Joe’s: making a difference in Mississippi

The Mount Saint Joseph Academy students took a break at Christine’s Restaurant. The group spent their spring break by contributing their time to relief efforts in a Mississippi town demolished by Hurricane Katrina.

Most teenage girls dream of spending Spring Break soaking up the sun in exotic locales. Yet, for 10 students from Mount Saint Joseph Academy in Flourtown, their Spring Break dream was to bring a message of hope to people living along the Gulf Coast. When Hurricane Katrina battered Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana in the waning days of August 2005, the destruction and chaos caused by this storm affected thousands — many who already faced socio-economic challenges. It was clear to the students of the Mount that their kindness and generosity was needed by those whose lives had been forever changed by Katrina.

Led by MSJA Campus Minister, Sister Joannie Cassidy, S.S.J., Mount students planned and prepared throughout the academic year for this mission of mercy. During the fall semester, the Community Service Corps, sold 250 “Mount Keychains” and raised over $10,000 to immediately aid the lunch program at the Thea Bowman Holy Child of Jesus School in Canton, Mississippi. This lunch program, typically costing $12,000, had been federally funded prior to Katrina. However, this funding was revoked in the wake of the hurricane and allotted to recovery programs administrated through FEMA. The money raised by the Mount students allowed for part of the lunch program to be reinstated and subsidized.

Christine Torrisi, Kristen Swamer and Kathleen Cooney hard at work.

In the spring semester, 10 students from the Mount were selected to travel to Mississippi over their spring break for a service mission. Kristen Swamer ’06, Kim Friel ’07, Catherine Dunn ’08, Katie Moran ’06, Sue Green ’08, Christine Torrisi ’08, Kathleen Cooney ’08, Mackenzie Cavanaugh ’07, Katie McCool ’07 and Elise Farano ’07 joined Sister Joannie, MSJA Principal Sister Karen Dietrich, S.S.J. and Theology teacher Katie Burke for a seven-day journey into the most devastated regions of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

The group stayed at the iCare Village for Volunteers, sponsored by the Morrell Foundation, in Waveland, Mississippi. Waveland experienced tidal surges of 30 feet and 125 mile-per-hour winds during Katrina. In a town of 7,000 residents, only 35 homes were considered “habitable” after the hurricane. Kristen Swamer ’06 vividly describes of driving through a seven mile stretch of Waveland where no home remains standing from Katrina. Swamer says, “Waveland is a beautiful place that, in an instant, became a wasteland. It is eerie to drive down a street where you know people once lived and the only thing that you can see for miles is a lone billboard that reads ‘We Will Rebuild Together.’ Yet, eight months after the storm, nothing is rebuilt.”

During their time along the Gulf Coast, the young women met a variety of individuals who now live in broken homes — not just physically broken but also mentally. Christine Torrisi ‘08, described meeting the citizens of Waveland as “connecting with those who actually experienced the terror of Katrina, not just through the television, but just outside their doors.” Many members of the community continue to struggle in the aftermath of the storm, relying upon FEMA for trailers to live in and financial assistance to pay monthly expenses. The students from the Mount spent much of their week helping to clear the debris that still clutters the once pristine landscape of the Gulf Coast. Families still sift through the rubble, seeking to salvage anything of their pre-Katrina lives.

In their travels, this student group met a gentleman named Jim who had only recently retired to Mississippi a few months before the hurricane. He had lost everything in the storm - his house was destroyed, his possessions lost. Yet, the only thing that remained standing on his entire property was a grape trellis, which, Jim explained to the girls, was the primary reason he and his wife had bought the house. The trellis survived the storm and in the April sun, as the Mount students worked to help Jim clear the debris that littered his property, he showed them that the grapes had begun to grow again. Jim told the students that the “growing grapes are a sign of hope, a gentle reminder that life goes on.”

The mission of hope that the Mount students wished to bring to the people of Mississippi was in fact matched, if not surpassed, by the faith exhibited by the people they met. In the seven days spent on the Gulf Coast, the young women of the Mount made a difference. The girls spent time clearing debris, visiting the Thea Bowman School and conversing with the members of this devastated community. This service experience demonstrates that Mount students are “ready for any good work.”