On campus clubs unite for New Orleans trip

Shirts Across America and Teams for Humanitarian Relief will join together and travel to Louisiana this spring break to help repair damage done by Hurricane Katrina.


This is the first year that the two Seattle University groups will merge and plan to send 24 students to New Orleans from March 21 to 27. Co-presidents Erin Boniface and Lindsey Youngquist merged their independent groups this year to try and make a bigger impact, they said.

The Seattle chapter of Shirts Across America was co-founded by Boniface and other Seattle high school students in 2007 to raise money for rebuilding the damage done by Katrina. The group sold shirts at high schools and eventually branched out to colleges. Last year Boniface started the Seattle U chapter and it is now nationwide.


Alumni Lisa Hogan started Teams for Humanitarian Relief at Seattle U in 2006 and Youngquist was appointed president last year. 


"We've done a lot more together than we could have ever done," said Boniface, sophomore humanities for teaching major.

Last year 13 Seattle U students worked with the St. Bernard Project, a nonprofit organization started in 2006. This will be the fourth annual trip to New Orleans by Seattle U students.


"The trip was really successful last year, and there were a lot of students who were very touched by their experience," said Youngquist, junior biology major. "We really owe it to them also for making the trip more known and inspiring students to participate."


The students traveling to New Orleans will fund their way with letter writing, fundraising and support from ASSU.

"The fact that there are still people not in their houses is just horrible," said Cydni Carter, who will be traveling to New Orleans for the first time this spring break. "I'm sort of blind going into this, other than just pictures I've seen so I'm not quite sure what to expect."


These students really want to help," Boniface said. "You wouldn't put your own money in this if you weren't really dedicated to the cause."


This will be the second trip to New Orleans for sophomore Wynn Barnard. 
"I didn't really know what to expect and I was just shocked at how bad things still were," Barnard said of her first trip last year. "You would have thought that it hit last week. It was just terrible. Huge piles of children's toys and insulation and wood and clothes and entire homes that you could still walk into were practically untouched." 


This past fall Liz McCartney, co-founder of the St. Bernard Project, spoke at Seattle U to a crowd of roughly 200. The event inspired students to help with the damage caused by Katrina as well as recruitment at the clubs fair and by word of mouth.
"

It's just a really desperate situation that really needs addressing because our government and our nation have the ability to change that," Youngquist said. "And after four years I don't think that it's acceptable for people to still be displaced." 


However, change isn't going to come quickly or easily. Though Hurricane Katrina is five years in the past, damage still remains. 
"We certainly can't do it by ourselves," Youngquist said. "We want to try and give as many people the opportunity to experience domestic service because Katrina was a huge natural disaster. I think we are giving Seattle University students an opportunity to be part of the rebuilding process."

Kate may be reached at kganiron@su-spectator.com.