Postcard from New Orleans

Dec. 13, 2005
Dear MC Friends:

After arriving at the Delgado Community College City Park campus this morning we learned that because of air quality concern we would not be able to help clean out the library as we had originally planned to. Instead we were moved to Delgado's Charity School of Nursing in downtown New Orleans.

The seven-story building housing the Charity School of Nursing is located directly down the street from the Superdome, and sustained less damage than the City Park campus. The building did lose part of its roof, and received substantial amounts of water on the seventh floor through the hole created when the roof blew off. Rainwater flooded the gym, and then the water overflowed into the hallway leaving mold and debris behind.

Once we met the Charity clean-up crew we were divided into groups and quickly put to work. One group was responsible for cleaning and sanitizing furniture that had been removed from the offices during the flooding, while other students cleared the gym of furniture that had been ruined or was covered in mold.

Shortly after finishing those tasks we collectively worked on cleaning the gym. For the remainder of the workday the group removed mold from tables, chairs, lockers and other surfaces. Once the mold was removed we swept and mopped the floors as we finished our second day of hard work.

On Wednesday, we are back on Delgado's City Park campus to continue with the clean up as we hope to help them open their doors in January.

• Manda

Manda Scheub is a sophomore from Grand Rapids, Ohio. She is writing a daily postcard from New Orleans to relay what she and the 37-person traveling party from MC are doing at Delgado Community College and in New Orleans from Dec. 11-16.

Marietta College students clear the Charity School of Nursing gym of furniture. Located down the street from the Superdome, the school lost part of its roof during Hurricane Katrina.