Area schools react to Katrina

Universities and colleges around Massachusetts have responded to Hurricane Katrina by temporarily offering for free their classrooms, research space and any available on-campus housing to students and professors from the affected Gulf states.

At several universities, contributing to the Katrina relief effort has also meant generosity and creativity in organizing fundraisers and various relief projects. At Amherst College, students are coordinating 24 different on-campus projects to help victims of Katrina. The projects include collecting donations at sports events and collecting supplies for victims with diabetes. Amherst is also raising money by charging students a small fee to match them with other students who have similar interests.

Another project, still under consideration by campus dining services, is inviting students to donate meals for an entire Friday.

Sophomore Erika Sams, a student coordinator for Amherst's relief efforts, said that although the meal donations program is a one-time project, her committee hopes the different relief efforts will last over the course of the semester and perhaps into the next.

"I think that this campus as a whole has had an excellent response to the Katrina crisis," Sams said in an email. "Pretty much every student wants to help in some way."

Kent Divoll, a doctoral student in the education department at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, found his own way to help: dancing.

Last Wednesday, Divoll, who directs a weekly ballroom dance class at the Northampton Theater for the Arts, turned the dance into a fundraiser and collected $1,200 in donations. From the 100 attendees at the event, approximately 30 percent were students.

"I would describe the dance last Wednesday as a mixture of fun and community service," Divoll said in an email. "I am happy to help out, but I wish I could give and do more."

Some Boston-area universities are temporarily taking in students whose schools in the Gulf states were damaged by the hurricane.

Northeastern University is trying to make those who were displaced by the hurricane feel at home in Boston. The Spiritual Life Center at Northeastern is organizing a reception with school chaplains and students from the affected areas.

"We want to introduce ourselves, make [the students] feel welcome and give them a chance to meet one another," said Shelli Jankowski-Smith, director of spiritual life.

Jankowski-Smith added that the center's Lutheran Chaplain and Christian Social Action Ministry prepared toiletry kits containing donated towels, soap, toothbrushes and other personal items to be delivered this week to New Orleans and other affected cities.

Ashley Adams, president of Northeastern's Student Government Association, said the student government is planning a combined food, clothing and blood drive, giving students the option to donate in any way they can.

"As college students, we don't often have a lot of money," Adams said. "We want to make sure everyone can contribute something."

At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, students, faculty and staff are contributing by donating musical instruments to the school system in Pass Christian, Miss., a town that was 90 percent destroyed by Katrina.

Sally Susnowitz, director of the MIT Public Service Center, said the instruments will be distributed by a music teacher who works for the Pass Christian school district and wants to continue the music program there.

"We are searching for particular recipients and trying to understand their needs," Susnowitz said. "We want to make sure we are sending what is needed and that there is someone to receive it."

Through ongoing fundraisers coordinated by MIT student organizations, residence halls and university staff, the university has raised $25,000 for the American Red Cross and local aid organizations in the Gulf region that can deliver help on the spot. The money will also support MIT students who will go to the affected regions to complete remediation projects during their January break.

Harvard University has also found its way to help through matching donations and offering the service of its professionals.

According to Mary Ann Jarvis, the associate director of community relations at Harvard, the university will match donations from students, faculty and employees through Oct. 15. After that, it will only receive donations, but not match them.

Jarvis said her department has collected about $180,000 in donations, and she expects it to rise to between $400,000 and $500,000. Harvard will match approximately 80 percent of the total money raised.

According to Harvard's website, Harvard's School of Public Health is working with the Red Cross to send teams of Harvard doctors and public health workers to the affected areas of the Gulf Region in the upcoming weeks and months.

"[The University has] allowed everyone to express themselves through the different efforts," Jarvis said.

In addition to raising funds on campus, Brandeis University is hosting a teach-in on Sept. 26 in which faculty members from different departments and schools will hold a multi-disciplinary panel discussion to address issues related to Hurricane Katrina, including social inequality and disaster relief response.

"I expect the teach-in will influence people to begin to think about how future generations of leaders can better anticipate how to react to natural disasters," Brandeis spokesman Dennis Nealon said in an email.