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MSU student cleans up on spring break
April 09, 2009 -- Melynda Harrison, MSU News
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| An MSU Spring BreaksAway group plants irises in New Orleans' City Park. Photo courtesy of Carol Froseth. |
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While other students were basking on beaches or doing laundry at their parents' house, Montana State University junior Carol Froseth spent her break cleaning, painting and planting in New Orleans' City Park.
"I've volunteered on vacations before and it's a lot nicer than going as a tourist," said the agroecology major. "It's nice to travel with a purpose."
Froseth was part of a group of 17 MSU students who drove 40 hours to New Orleans during their spring break to help clean up the city's Hurricane Katrina-damaged City Park. The MSU Office for Community Involvement's BreaksAway program matches students with volunteer opportunities around the country. In addition to the group that volunteered in Louisiana, 11 students worked with the Grand Canyon Trust and seven students worked with Save the Family Foundation, an organization dedicated to helping homeless families in Phoenix.
Froseth chose the New Orleans project both because she had never been there and was curious to tour the city, and because the project appealed to her love of open space.
"One of the things I love about Bozeman is the public space," said Froseth , a Corvallis, Mont. native. "I know how important it is for a sense of community."
The MSU group spent six hours a day for five days sprucing up the 1,300-acre park, one of the largest city parks in the country. By contrast, Central Park in New York is only 843-acres. Eleven million people visit the park each year to picnic, tour the New Orleans Museum of Art, listen to bands, enjoy amusement park rides, golf, stroll through the botanical and sculpture gardens and take a break from the city.
City Park is home to the largest collection of mature live oaks in the world, some of them over 600 years old. While many of the oldest oaks survived, Hurricane Katrina toppled over 1,000 trees in August 2005. Another 1,000 died subsequently in the salty flood water.
Prior to the hurricane, 260 employees took care of City Park. After the hurricane, the staff was cut to 46 employees due to the loss of revenue from the damage of so many fee-based attractions.
Froseth and the MSU group helped out with tasks that park employees couldn't get to.
They painted park shelters, amusement park fences and storage containers. The group cleaned up debris left by eight feet of water around a tree farm.
"The work was not glamorous, but I went to work and expected that," said Froseth. "It's the little stuff that makes the park more appealing to visitors, and that a few employees can't get to because they are busy mowing the grass."
"Seventeen Montana kids can get a lot done in a few hours," Froseth said.
One of her favorite projects was propagating irises that would be used to restore stream banks. Hurricane Katrina wiped out already degraded wetlands and riparian corridors. As an agro-ecology major, Froseth equated the soil loss and erosion taking place in Louisiana to the lesser, but still important soil loss Montana farmers face.
"One of the reasons we are going to no-till farming in Montana is to conserve soil. I found it astonishing how much soil was going in so many directions in New Orleans," said Froseth. "Soil from up north, including Montana, ends up washed into the Gulf. If we lose it up here and they don't catch it down there, then it's really gone and it becomes real pollution in the Gulf."
The Spring BreaksAway trip wasn't just work for the MSU group; they were able to explore New Orleans when they weren't working.
Froseth sipped hot cocoa and ate beignets on a carriage ride through the French Quarter, gawked at alligators on a swamp tour, rode a ferry across the Mississippi River and watched an IMAX movie about Hurricane Katrina.
She also talked to residents and listened to their stories.
"I was impressed by how removed we are from that area. I really had no idea how bad the damage was and how much people's lives were affected," said Froseth.
She found that people were appreciative of the group's visit.
"As soon as people found out we were volunteering, they were so grateful, but they thanked us just for coming, even more than for volunteering," Froseth said.
Amanda Staubyn at (406) 994-6902 or amanda.staubyn@montana.edu
Hi-Resolution Images or PDFs Available:
| [View or Download] | 1. | An MSU Spring BreaksAway group plants irises in New Orleans’ City Park. Photo courtesy of Carol Froseth. | | [View or Download] | 2. | Carol Froseth (bottom row, right) spent spring break in New Orleans fixing up New Orleans’ City Park as part of the Spring BreaksAway program. Photo courtesy of Carol Froseth. |
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