Last night was St. Patrick’s Day, traditionally celebrated as a day of spiritual renewal and service, and as you read in yesterday’s blog, our day was insightful, emotional, and profound. As New Orleans’ citizens and tourists celebrated, with green attire and festive music, this vibrancy juxtaposed and counterbalanced its communities in crisis.

Alarm clocks rang at 6am (and some, due to excitement, rose at 5am) followed by breakfast and we reached the Harvey site at 8am. There were close to 100 volunteers from Universities of Illinois and Iowa, George Washington and Mountain State in New Jersey. We were guided by three Habitat for Humanity staff, and three AmeriCorps volunteers. Energetic teams divided into working groups to continue the construction of 8 different homes in progress (there are 12 total on the sites).

As we prepared for the work ahead of us, Terry (“T-Ray”), our Habitat for Humanity leader, spoke to us of one of the individuals for whom we are building. Aneita Paige or “Ms. Ann,” originally from Jamaica, came to the States 20 years ago with just two suitcases in hand. Days before Hurricane Katrina, she went to visit her sister out of state. While she was gone, the hurricane hit. She returned days later with just those two very suitcases to find that her home and everything in it had been lost. Though she lost everything, for the first time in her life, she will now be a homeowner. Every house we are working on has a family behind it, a story behind it, and a future highly anticipated before it. It was a fantastic way to start our day off, just as the tour of the disaster areas was an important way to end our day yesterday. It put it all into perspective. And though, as Sandy Rosenthal ’79 said yesterday, “what happened was not a natural disaster but a man-made one,” we are happy to be a part of a very human solution to a horrible situation. 

It was easy to smile and look thrilled in the photos today as we sweated and challenged ourselves to new tasks. Amongst the Mount Holyoke volunteers, we had a great mixture of skill levels, and while the experienced stepped into their elements, beginners succeeded with new challenges. The spirit of willingness and joy today produced concrete work for the betterment of this wonderful place.

We returned to our guest house complete with the grime of a hard days work, all feeling relieved to have accomplished something. Most of us went out to dinner together and had the opportunity to, yet again, be so well fed. This place, though clearly still devastated and bouncing back from Katrina, is also intoxicating. The air is thick and sweet, the people kind and welcoming, the rhythm contagious, and the food fills you up like no other. It makes you hopeful that those 1 in 15 that have returned to their city since the hurricane will continue to grow, that they will have something to return to, and that this city may get back to the rhythm it once had. You can still feel it.

Though we just arrived Sunday, many of us have wanted to come down here to aid in the reconstruction since the damage first occurred. Driving those first nails was an incredible relief. Driven women that we are, there were snippets of conversations as the women looked up at their work at the end of the day, already setting goals for what we might accomplish by the end of the week—together with brewing plans for future trips.

Anni Amberg

Frances Perkins ‘09 

Krysia L. Villón ‘96
Assistant Director of Clubs
Alumnae Association