Share this story. 
|
Show of Hands: ORU Crew Joins Pickup Game
By April Marciszewski - Tulsa World Staff Writer 10/17/2005
| |
| |
|
Buses and vans rolled into a church parking lot at 10:30 p.m. Saturday, and out piled 143 ORU students and staff members, several Guts Church employees and Mayor Bill LaFortune with backpacks, sleeping bags and pillows.
The students are the largest contingent yet to help clean up Long Beach through Service International, a faith-based humanitarian group in Chesterfield, Mo.
Ed Fasnacht of Service International illustrated why some students gave up their week of fall break to dig through the debris created by Hurricane Katrina. "The offering bucket's going by. I'm jumping in," he said, clenching his fists in glee and hopping forward.
Hours later, dust billowed from orange wheelbarrows and students dropped in handfuls of twigs, concrete and stones cluttering O'Malley Field, a park just blocks from the Gulf Coast and smack in the middle of Long Beach's worst damage.
"Every piece of drywall represents someone -- someone's house and something taken away," said Josh Bibeau, a sophomore majoring in music technology.
Students scraped plastic rakes through trash to clear around baseball fields and return the normalcy of fall-league games to children's lives, said Emily Carter, who's studying for a master's degree in divinity.
Although students worked for hours on that area, it didn't compare to the tall piles of building materials and the ripped-apart jungle gym just across a creek.
"Obviously, we can't rebuild the city, but we can do our part," said April Jones, a junior studying communications.
Across town in a neighborhood of many military retirees, Charles Stringer rested on a green cane. The corners of his mouth inched up as he looked forward to ORU students cutting down three leaning pecan trees in his backyard.
"I've never seen a more respectful, caring bunch of young adults," he said.
Jessica Stough, a senior majoring in psychology, has worked with her father's construction company for years. Paid construction employees "don't do half as much" as the students did, she said.
Students quickly untangled bicycles from the dead tangles of a blackberry bush and hammered boards off broken fences.
Stough peered at brown streaks of water damage and missing ceilings in Darnell Nicovich's house.
"Is there any water damage with the walls?" Stough asked. Nicovich thought so. Stough said later that students could cut away a section of stained wall, put in new material and spackle it to match the existing finish.
Nicovich tilted her head sideways, smiled wide and switched the conversation to Stough.
"So is this like fall break?" she asked, and then continued, "And you're not taking a break to rest?"
Stough didn't flinch. The change from a week of midterms to a week of physical labor was a break for her.
Back outside, in the 87-degree heat, Stough burst out in song, other students laughed and they kept cleaning up the mess the hurricane created.
--------------------------------------------------
April Marciszewski 581-8475
april.marciszewski@tulsaworld.com
