Student groups and individuals
on both campuses have joined
in organizing relief efforts for
Hurricane Katrina victims.
“It’s been an incredible
response. People want to respond
and they want to help in any way
possible,” said Cass Newell, a
senior majoring in human biology.
“There are certainly a lot of goodhearted
folks out there that are
willing to step up to the plate.
They’ve been really incredible and
I’m looking forward to working
with everyone.”
Newell is in charge of
organizing the various relief efforts
of students on campus. To that
end she is organizing a series of
fundraising events centered around
Homecoming, which includes
bottle drives, a 50/50 raffle, coin
collection cans in high profile
campus locations, and a car wash.
Newell is also trying to get a
car donated to be raffled off and
is making arrangements with the
Comedy Connection in Portland to
have a comedy night on the Portland
campus.
“Honestly, I considered a leave
of absence this semester to go down
south,” said Newell, but instead
she “called the Red Cross and
asked if I could help.” Newell had
fundraising experience from having
participated in the American AIDS
Ride for three years.
Newell chose to focus most
of her fundraising efforts around
Homecoming because of its
visibility on campus as well as
Homecoming week being at about
the same time as Newell hoped to
have completed her fund raising
efforts. “Because it’s such an
immediate need I’m pretty focused
on keeping people focused on this
event and the immediate nature of
it.”
Newell said she would like to
see the donation to the Red Cross
total about $10,000, a number
she thinks is entirely possible,
especially if she can get a car
donated. She emphasized that the
work is being done by many more
people than herself.
Separate from Newell’s
efforts, WMPG hosted their own
miniature Mardi Gras event on
Tuesday in order to raise money for
WWOZ, a community radio station
in New Orleans. According to John
Dennison, development director for
WMPG, the station chose to support
another radio station because the
two stations are kindred spirits.
“We felt the best way WMPG
could exert hurricane relief was to
go with what we know,” Dennison
said. “That would be a great trend
for all businesses.” For WMPG this
means businesses in the same trade
should help each other through hard
times like WWOZ is going through
after Hurricane Katrina damaged its transmitter and tore off part of
the roof of the radio station.
Also, Dennison said WWOZ
was particularly deserving of help
because “those guys are the stewards
of music and culture in New
Orleans.” According to Dennison,
WWOZ has a large collection of
unique recordings by artists from
around New Orleans aren’t readily
available anywhere else.
WMPG kicked off their
fundraising at 6:30 a.m. and it was
scheduled to run for 12 hours. The
station served Cajun food for those
who came in to donate to the relief
fund, which was prepared by the
Bayou Kitchen in Portland, Uncle
Billy’s in Yarmouth and Aramark in
Portland.
Dennison said listeners were
tuning in to the broadcast from
all over the state because WERU,
which broadcasts from Bangor
to Blue Hill, picked up WMPG’s
signal and carried it to its audience.
Andrea Thompson McCall,
assistant dean of student life at
USM, said she feels all the different
efforts being put together by
Newell, WMPG and other student
groups is important because it
allows everybody to focus their
energy in different ways.
As she got more involved in
the process of coordinating the
relief efforts, Newell began to feel
like USM’s relief campaign should
be a statement about the university.
“As I got thinking about
student participation and hands
on experience, I was in hopes that
we could respond as a unified
student body and show the outside
community that USM students are
civic minded and kind hearted and
really care about their neighbors,”
Newell said.
Many universities in the states
affected by Hurricane Katrina have
announced they won’t be holding
classes during the fall semester. In
response the University of Maine
system has offered in-state tuition
and relaxed enrollment procedures
to students who have been displaced
by Hurricane Katrina, according to
a press release from the University
of Maine System Office.
According to Beth Higgins,
director of academic advising
at USM, one student had made
inquiries about enrolling and the
university, but decided to enroll at
Bates College where the student’s
tuition as well as room and board
were paid for by Bates.
Richard Smart
can be contacted at
freepress@usm.maine.edu
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