Global Green News
Northborough teacher aide, students helping New Orleans school reopen
THE METROWEST DAILY NEWS. JANUARY 15, 2010. By Evan Lips
Three Algonquin Regional High School students presented a $300 donation yesterday to Proctor Elementary School teaching aide Martha Bigelow, money that will help a New Orleans school reopen more than four years after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the area.
A little more than a week ago, Bigelow found herself in a neighborhood still reeling from the devastating flood, using her vacation time to help welcome back students to Andrew H. Wilson Elementary School, a charter school near the city's Ninth Ward.
"Our school has a partnership with them," she said yesterday.
Proctor Principal Margaret Donohoe said yesterday's assembly served as an opportunity to share the Algonquin students' fundraising results with Bigelow while providing elementary school youngsters with exposure to the value of giving back to community
"The assembly's theme of responsibility served as a great segue into Martha's presentation," she said.
Bigelow knows firsthand that even after four-plus years, life is still a struggle for thousands of New Orleans residents. Last week's trip was the third time she has traveled there to offer help and support.
"Since Katrina is not in the news any more, a lot of people assume everything is all better," Bigelow said. "It's not.
"People who go down to New Orleans typically visit the French Quarter, an area that's fine now. But beyond that neighborhood there are still areas of the city that are hurting."
Since Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, Bigelow said, Northborough area students have helped deliver $2,500 worth of equipment and countless boxes of books to help Wilson Elementary recover.
But Wilson was not the only school she helped during her trip. Bigelow spent chunks of time at another elementary school in the Ninth Ward that still used modular buildings for classrooms. She described it as institutional, almost like a prison.
"The students there are still not in a regular school," she said. "It's basically a parking lot surrounded by a 12-foot fence, no trees, no grass, with metal detectors at the entrances and security guards."
The school, Benjamin Carver Elementary, offered no shade for students playing in the tarred lot during recess. Bigelow said she and a Worcester-based mission society helped build gazebo-like structures to give students some relief from the sun.
She also found the students' reaction to the delivery of four boxes of books to the school library particularly moving.
"We let third- and fourth-graders choose two books to keep for themselves," she said. "The look of joy on their faces meant everything to us."
