Strake Jesuit - Katrina

Hurricane Katrina
A Community for Others

    Most students at any Jesuit school have the opportunity to put that motto into action every day. They do it with their classmates, teachers, friends, parents, siblings, and even strangers. Only once in a great while, however, does an entire school community of students, faculty, staff, parents, alumni, past parents and friends, have the opportunity to put that motto into action as a single collective.
    Strake Jesuit's 'once in a great while' arrived the week after Hurricane Katrina struck the Louisiana/Mississippi Gulf Coast. The way in which the entire Strake Jesuit school community responded to that call to be Men for Others has been nothing short of inspiring. History may well look upon that response as a defining moment for the school.

photo by Johnny Hanson
THE SCHOOL SAYS ‘YES’
    The response began almost immediately after the disaster struck New Orleans and, more specifically, Jesuit High School of New Orleans on Sunday, August 28. By Tuesday, the Strake Jesuit Office of Admissions began to get inquiries from parents and students of Jesuit High School of New Orleans expressing interest in transferring for at least the remainder of the fall semester. Their school was located in an area of New Orleans caught in the flooding as a result of the breech in a levee, and it had five feet of water throughout its ground floor. That flooding made them realize that they would not soon be returning to their own school and had to find an alternative.
    By Wednesday, August 30 some 50 Jesuit New Orleans students inquired and applied for enrollment at Strake Jesuit. That same afternoon, school President Fr. Daniel Lahart, SJ called a meeting of his administrators to discuss the situation and make appropriate decisions and plans. It was at this meeting that the decision was made, and later validated at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the school's Board of Directors, that the school would accept any student from Jesuit High School of New Orleans that requested admission. Plan 1 was put into action which, assuming the number did not grow significantly larger in the coming days, called for the new students to be absorbed into the Strake Jesuit student body with minimal change in schedules.
    In the days that followed and as the numbers grew, there were more meetings. From those meetings came any number of troubling questions. Could this growing number of new students be absorbed into a student body of some 870, which already pressed the school facilities and faculty? Where would they live? How would they get to school? Would the entire existing class schedule be tossed out and a new schedule created? What would it do to class size? Would there be enough teachers?
    All of these questions were being posed as the number of applications continued to rise - rising not by the day or by the hour, but by the minute.
    Strake Jesuit's normally quiet, serene two-person Admissions Office headed by Ken Lojo '91 with assistant Marian Harper had, in the matter of a day, been tranformed into a crisis center. The phone calls and e-mails could not be responded to in time to avoid a backlog of voice messages and repeat e-mails.
    By the beginning of Labor Day weekend, the number of Jesuit New Orleans students headed for Strake Jesuit had grown to over 200. It was time for Plan 2. Under this plan, temporary classrooms would be placed on campus in order to handle the additional students. By Monday, Labor Day, the number was closer to 300 and growing. By now Jesuit New Orleans President Fr. Anthony McGinn, SJ had arrived at Strake Jesuit and set up temporary residence in the Jesuit Community. After a series of meetings, it was agreed to move to Plan 3.
    Under Plan 3, the current Strake Jesuit students would stay on their existing schedule, what was now called the First Session. All of the new students would go into what was deemed the Second Session. This session would begin sometime soon after the First Session ended at 3:00 p.m. and last until about 9:00 p.m. Fortunately, some 25 Jesuit New Orleans faculty had also made their way to Houston and they would serve as the teachers for this Second Session.
    On Tuesday, September 6, the day began with a Huddle-Up student assembly for Strake Jesuit students. At that assembly, Fr. Lahart addressed the students and told them, “I am proud of what we begin here today. There is great excitement as we begin this day. There is also a large amount of uncertainty that we know and that we feel. There will be some difficult days ahead for all of us. That's okay. We don't take in these students because it's easy, or fun, or good PR, or even because they'd do it for us. We do it because it is the right thing to do. You will be faced with similar situations often in your own lives. Often. Doing the right thing, even when it is difficult. This is being a Man for Others.”
    The assembly was followed immediately with an Orientation Day for all of the new students and their parents. Information was collected and verified, photo IDs were taken, and each new student was paired up with a Strake Jesuit 'buddy.' The plan was coming together. And it was a good thing as, by Wednesday, September 8, the number of new students had exceeded 400 approaching a 50% increase in the existing Strake Jesuit student body.

At Orientation Day, each Jesuit New Orleans student was
introduced to a Strake Jesuit ‘buddy’ in his grade. They had
lunch together, attended afternoon classes and exchanged
information so they could stay in touch.
THE STUDENTS SAY ‘YES’
    As quickly as the hurricane struck the coast, the Strake Jesuit Service Coordinator Robert Cremins sprang into action. Knowing that the need would be great and that the Strake Jesuit students would be equally as anxious to help, he put a plan into action.
    Two donation drives were created to focus the desire for Strake Jesuit students to help. First, the Matthew 25 Drive was started as a means to collect monetary donations. These donations were targeted for the New Orleans Province Jesuits, who are based in New Orleans. A second drive focused on aid for the thousands of New Orleans residents who were being relocated to the Astrodome in Houston. This drive was coordinated by the school's Alumni Service Corps (ASC) and focused on the donation of the most needed items such as toiletries. Also, a large contingent of Jesuit students volunteered to man food donation locations at HEB grocery stores located near school on Friday, September 2. Lastly, every new student from Jesuit New Orleans was to be assigned a Strake Jesuit 'buddy'. Someone he could develop an initial friendship with, someone he could shadow for a few days, someone who could answer questions that only another student could answer. The response to the call for 'buddy' volunteers was so great that there were more volunteers than there were new students.
    One week into the three efforts, results were equally outstanding. The Matthew 25 Drive had raised over $4,000, the ASC drive had resulted in donations sufficient to fill the Pastoral Ministry Center's outer office, and the call for ‘buddies’ resulted in more volunteers than necessary to fill the need. Strake Jesuit students answered their call to be Men for Others.

THE GREATER COMMUNITY SAYS ‘YES’
    This call to action was not just heard on the Strake Jesuit campus, it echoed throughout the Strake Jesuit community - a community of parents, alumni, past parents and close friends of the school. Within days of the tragedy and the awareness of the impact on Strake Jesuit, the school's greater community stepped up to the plate in a variety of ways. Within a week more than 150 called to offer their homes to host displaced families. More than 70 New Orleans families were placed in some of those homes. The Mothers' Club, always an anchor for the school in troubled times, came through in true Jesuit style. They volunteered to assist at Orientation where all hands were needed, they put together care packages and information packets, they directed students and parents where to go. They literally did everything they were called to do and more.\
    In addition to these efforts, the school was facing a financial need as well. Taking in more than 400 new, unanticipated students whose tuition was being waived for the first semester came with a price tag. Here again, the school community began and continues to respond. Through the Brother's Keepers fund, the school raised over $100,000 in less than a week from alumni, parents and other members of the school community.
    There is one certainty about facing a crisis in life, either one of our own or in responding to someone else’s. How we respond shows our true colors. There is no time to measure the cost or to do a cost/benefit analysis. There is only time to react. In this difficult situation, the entire Strake Jesuit community can take great pride in how we showed our true colors - we are of a Community for Others.