Student uses break for Katrina cleanup

APPLETON, Wis. – Sand, surf and sun are time-honored traditions of college spring break, but when Holden’s Kelsey Lutz headed south during the recent recess, she had a different plan: service.

Lutz, a junior at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., traded a week of rest and relaxation for a seven-day stint as a disaster relief volunteer in New Orleans for the nongovernmental organization Emergency Communities.

A 2003 graduate of John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor, Lutz was one of 40 Lawrence students who made the 18-hour, 1,100-mile journey to Louisiana’s St. Bernard Parish, where 100 percent of the buildings must be rebuilt as a result of Hurricane Katrina.

While all the students on the trip had seen and read plenty of news reports about the damage inflicted by Katrina, the reality of the destruction turned a boisterous bus silent when it rolled into New Orleans.

“While I was aware New Orleans was still being rebuilt, I certainly had no conception of the extent of the destruction and work yet to be done,” said Lutz, the daughter of Gordon and Marilyn Lutz of Holden.

During her visit, Lutz worked at the Made With Love Cafe & Grill, a makeshift kitchen and dining hall housed in two large canvas-covered domes in Arabi, a city that once boasted a population of nearly 70,000 but now has fewer than 10,000 residents.

She helped the kitchen prepare and serve more than 10,000 meals for residents, volunteers and construction and cleanup workers during her stay. Daily duties included washing vegetables, cooking rice and manning the serving lines. As the largest source of food in the area, the kitchen operated from 5:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day.

“Working with the Made With Love Cafe was the best way I could have contributed because through it we offered residents a support system,” said Lutz. “Even though the sadness and frustration of residents was clear, those emotions didn’t hinder our interaction with them. In fact, at the cafe, residents sought out volunteers as an audience for their stories about Katrina and its aftermath. That sharing of experiences created a web between volunteers and residents that served to strengthen our common interest of bringing New Orleans back.”

In addition to working at the kitchen, Lutz also participated in a day trip in which she assisted with gutting a house – removing water-logged furniture and appliances, ripping out mold-infested drywall and insulation – and helping to construct a prefabricated house.

In the evenings, Lutz slept in a nearby tent built atop pallets covered with blankets because the area is too contaminated with toxins to put up the tents directly on the ground.