2008 Woodie Awards
Professor spends break helpping New Orleans rebuild
By Dara Salley
Rocket Assistant Life/A&E Editor
Issue date: 1/20/06 Section: Life
The week before Christmas when most Slippery Rock students and faculty were enjoying time off with their families and doing last minute shopping, Dr. Carol Holland, a counselor here at SRU, was providing help and comfort to the brave people who are rebuilding their homes in New Orleans.
"It just blew my mind how grateful they were for the inexpensive bits of help we gave them," Holland said. "We were handing out kits of a twenty to twenty-five dollar value and they thanked us so much. The resiliency of the people amazed me. Some people had lost their homes, their school, their car, their family members and their entire community is displaced and still they are determined to come back and fix their homes.
It's very encouraging to see"
Dr. Holland is a volunteer for the American Red Cross who has been trained for helping people in crises with mental health issues.
"I went to help counseling during 9-11 and other smaller crises. When this occurred they called me right away but I couldn't go because the semester was just starting. I went down right before Christmas. It was good because there were some volunteers that had been there since Thanksgiving and wanted to leave. So I got all ready for Christmas a few weeks beforehand," said Holland.
Holland left for New Orleans in December with little idea as to what she would be doing.
"Every time before I'm deployed I don't know what I'm going to be doing," she explained. "It could be counseling Red Cross staff; it could be clients or firefighters and rescue workers so I have to be ready to be flexible."
When she arrived in New Orleans she was assigned to a team of volunteers who drove three box trucks full of cleaning supplies to surrounding neighborhoods.
"When I got there the Red Cross gave me a white minivan and a roadmap," Holland said. "It was the biggest vehicle other then a Hummer that they could have given me. I stayed at a hotel downtown and drove to the Red Cross headquarters about 45 minutes away. Every morning we would leave the Red Cross headquarters and travel around to hand out cleaning supplies. We gave out everything from buckets, bleach and respirators. My job was to walk along and talk to the people we gave supplies to; ask them if they needed to talk to anyone."
"It just blew my mind how grateful they were for the inexpensive bits of help we gave them," Holland said. "We were handing out kits of a twenty to twenty-five dollar value and they thanked us so much. The resiliency of the people amazed me. Some people had lost their homes, their school, their car, their family members and their entire community is displaced and still they are determined to come back and fix their homes.
It's very encouraging to see"
Dr. Holland is a volunteer for the American Red Cross who has been trained for helping people in crises with mental health issues.
"I went to help counseling during 9-11 and other smaller crises. When this occurred they called me right away but I couldn't go because the semester was just starting. I went down right before Christmas. It was good because there were some volunteers that had been there since Thanksgiving and wanted to leave. So I got all ready for Christmas a few weeks beforehand," said Holland.
Holland left for New Orleans in December with little idea as to what she would be doing.
"Every time before I'm deployed I don't know what I'm going to be doing," she explained. "It could be counseling Red Cross staff; it could be clients or firefighters and rescue workers so I have to be ready to be flexible."
When she arrived in New Orleans she was assigned to a team of volunteers who drove three box trucks full of cleaning supplies to surrounding neighborhoods.
"When I got there the Red Cross gave me a white minivan and a roadmap," Holland said. "It was the biggest vehicle other then a Hummer that they could have given me. I stayed at a hotel downtown and drove to the Red Cross headquarters about 45 minutes away. Every morning we would leave the Red Cross headquarters and travel around to hand out cleaning supplies. We gave out everything from buckets, bleach and respirators. My job was to walk along and talk to the people we gave supplies to; ask them if they needed to talk to anyone."
