Operating the Diocese of Little Rock’s donation center to serve hurricane evacuees was an opportunity to meet real survivors, the coordinator said.
Antje Harris normally spends her days as the director of Catholic Adoption Services but was asked by Catholic Charities director Sheila Gomez to coordinate the donations the diocese received following Hurricane Katrina Aug. 29.
Donors began to drop off clothes, food, water, toiletries and assorted odd-and-ends at St. John Center in Little Rock soon after the hurricane, and Harris and adoption specialist Rebecca Jones were given the daunting task of organizing the items and making sure they got distributed to those who needed it.
Over the past four months, nearly 200 “shoppers” visited the donation center in the former chancery building and shopped for themselves and extended family members and friends. Harris was assisted by several volunteers who sorted boxes of clothes, shoes and baby items into categories, making it easier for shoppers to find what they needed.
Because the building was being prepared for renovation, there was no heating, air conditioning, electricity or plumbing, which made the donation center a short-term project, Harris said. It was also difficult to find long-term volunteers who could relieve Harris and Jones of staffing the building.
The donation center officially closed Dec. 22.
“It was our privilege to meet them and hear their stores of survival,” Harris said of the evacuees who learned about the donation center through word of mouth. “They were survivors. … We tried our best to be there for them.”
Three evacuees eventually became volunteers themselves and helped Harris sort the clothes and other items. Deacon Dan and Lee Vincent and Elzina Wright were formerly from New Orleans and wanted to help others in need, Harris said.
The largest number of donations came in shipments from Gaithersburg, Md., and Fairfield Bay on Sept. 17.
The Maryland shipment included more than 2,200 new shoes, 500 backpacks, 2,000 tubes of toothpaste and 100 cases of water.
Over the past four months, the recipients have taken donations, large and small, and distributed them among other evacuees. Sometimes an organization asked for a large number of donations and agreed to give them to evacuees. Most of the food and water was given to Promise Land Church in Little Rock, which was housing and feeding 60 evacuees.
Catholic school principals in the state were invited to take school supplies and backpacks to the displaced students now attending their schools.
The largest shipment of donations was given to St. Alphonsus School in New Orleans, which is opening next week after replacing 60 windows and repairing the roof after extensive wind damage.
The Sisters of Mercy at Mount St. Mary Convent in Little Rock contacted Mercy Sister Monica Marie Ellerbush, St. Alphonsus School principal, with the news that a large donation of backpacks, school supplies, blankets, books, clothes and shoes mainly from Maryland were at St. John Center and were available for shipment.
On Dec. 15 a moving truck hired by the Sisters of Mercy Health System in St. Louis arrived to take 255 boxes to the school in the Lower Garden District.
St. Alphonsus School was one of the lucky schools in New Orleans because it did not flood, Sister Monica said during a phone interview with Arkansas Catholic.
When it opens next week, the school will welcome back about 115 of its 280 students. All of them will need financial assistance to attend.
“We know some will not be able to pay (the tuition), but it was always like that before,” said Sister Monica, who served as a teacher and principal at Immaculate Conception School in Fort Smith in the 1970s.
The Backpack Project was the brainchild of Jeanne Ellenport, a native of New Orleans now living in Gaithersburg. Many of the backpacks were stuffed with things a child would need or like, including school supplies, coloring books, T-shirts and toys. Sister Monica said the shipment from Little Rock relieved the school of the task of buying supplies for their students, many of who live below the poverty level.
“On the first day of school, we told them not to worry about book sacks or school supplies,” she said. “Whatever the children will need, they can come to the library to get.”
The Little Rock shipment also included hundreds of children’s books that will be distributed to the students on their first day back, Sister Monica said.
The students “want to come back to school so much and we want them to come back,” Sister Monica said.
