Student volunteers from DePaul University survey a damaged neighborhood in New Orleans with Sister Vera Butler, PBVM, (center), who has also been instrumental in the recovery work.

Vincentians and Friends Respond to the Call

“Overwhelmed, exhausted and exhilarated” is how one volunteer described the experience. Another said it was “some of the most difficult, yet rewarding, work of my life.” All the volunteers from DePaul University’s Public Services Management Program have been transformed through their work with St. Joseph’s Church and the surrounding community in New Orleans.

The call for help came a month after Hurricane Katrina devastated the New Orleans area in 2005. Father Perry Henry, CM, pastor of St. Joseph Church in the Tulane Canal neighborhood, asked DePaul University to issue a plea for help to its community. But he didn’t ask for shovels, food or clothing. He asked for assistance in urban planning and community development, people who could help residents rebuild their community from the ground up.

One of the first to respond was Dr. Gloria Simo, faculty member in the Management of Public Services graduate program and assistant director of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development, also housed at DePaul.

“I was teaching a class in needs assessment at the time,” Simo recalls. “In fact, I was using Katrina as a subject for discussion on how to begin recovery when the situation is catastrophic. This was a perfect opportunity to contribute in a meaningful way to the needs in New Orleans, and also benefit the students with real-life experience,” she says. Many of the students were already working in different aspects of community development, and were pursuing graduate degrees at DePaul.

Funded by the Chaddick Institute, Simo immediately took 12 volunteers to New Orleans to work on site. They threw themselves into 12-hour days, interviewing an array of people in government and non-profit organizations with resources, services or interests in the area. Their work identified 200 potential participants in a collaborative effort that would evolve into the Rebuild Center, a comprehensive neighborhood resource center located on the grounds of St. Joseph Church.

“Once we got to New Orleans, we were not so much teacher and student, but coworkers. They have brought so much to the table, you can’t look at them as just students,” says Simo.

“The need for housing, sanitation and demolition work was obvious in the aftermath of the storm, but you need much more than that to rebuild a viable community,” she continues. “Organizations need funding to support their mission. They need physical space. They need a plan to direct their efforts. That’s where our expertise comes in: rebuilding the infrastructure so the community is enabled to function and help themselves,” Simo says.

Since the initial visit in December 2005, support from DePaul University students and faculty has not waned, but grown. They have made more than 65 student visits, during five separate trips, and this fall Simo will be in New Orleans four more times, coordinating rotations of students and alumnae in such specialties as housing, healthcare and non-profit management.

DePaul volunteers have worked largely behind the scenes: helping to write grants to fund some of the most devastated non-profit organizations that serve the Crescent City, and teaching grant writing to others; identifying other resources to help groups achieve their service missions; and developing business plans that clarify their goals for the future. Working in specialized teams, the volunteers have contributed greatly to the recovery of New Orleans by collecting vital information and using it to assist many diverse organizations in establishing new ties and strengthen previously existing networks.

“This has been the most amazing work of my life,” says Simo. “When we started, I never dreamed it would be like this. A week doesn’t go by that I’m not in contact with students who have worked in New Orleans on this project and want to know what else they can do. It’s changed all of us forever.”

It’s a phenomenon St. Vincent de Paul himself would happily recognize: as those in need are helped, those who help are transformed.

As student volunteer Jean Voss wrote after her experience in New Orleans, “There were moments of overwhelming sadness, but also moments of laughter as we watched events unfold and met the extended family of St. Joseph Church. Their generous spirit and determination were, and continue to be, inspiring and remind me what it really means to be Vincentian.”