Legacy of Service

UW-Stout Winter Alternative Break: Establishing a Legacy of Service

Menomonie, WI -- Even though Hurricane Katrina blew through the Gulf Coast over two years ago, the devastation it left behind is still evident in the communities it affected.

Thousands of homes and lives were demolished, and many have depended on the dedication and compassion of volunteers to help them rebuild. To that end, a group of UW-Stout students have committed to use a portion of their winter break to go down to Mississippi to assist residents as they continue to renovate and attempt to re-establish their lives.

Erin Wood, an Interior Design Major and Legacy Intern for UW-Stout, will lead the group. Wood participated in a clean-up in the same area a year ago.

“Even now, there’s just so much to do,” Wood said. “The last time I was down there, one house would have green grass and look brand-new, like nothing had ever happened. In the next lot, there would be a car overturned, the yard would be full of debris, and the owners had never returned.

I couldn’t get my head around it,” she said. “It was like coming face-to-face with what you see on the News.”

The students will leave on January 12th, 2008 and stay in a volunteer camp called Camp Coastal outside the town of Kiln, Mississippi. (See their website at campuscoastaloutpost.org) The camp was originally developed for displaced residents after the hurricane, but now is staffed by volunteers and supplied by local companies. The camp rebuilds houses for free for residents who qualify -- primarily the poor, the elderly, and the disabled at a fraction of the cost it would normally require.

This is definitely not your normal break from college. The students will each pay their own way while they’re there, staying in Camp Coastal’s rustic cabins and eating simple food they may need to help prepare. Each day, a member of the camp staff delegates tasks out in the community for volunteers to complete. For the week they are there, the UW-Stout students will be given a variety of jobs ranging from putting up drywall and installing cabinets to clearing debris out of yards.

The trip is sponsored by the Involvement and Leadership Center at UW-Stout. As a Legacy Intern, Wood has taken on all the responsibility for planning, implementing, and evaluating a project which fills an existing need in the larger community. In this way, she leaves a legacy of meaningful commitment from her time at UW-Stout. Wood is taking time off work and cutting short her holiday in order to help out in Mississippi.

“Volunteering is addictive,” Wood admits. “You get to know people in a different way. And I’m not one to forget when something happens. As long as there’s still a need for help (in the Kiln, Mississippi area), I’ll continue to go.”

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