A group of WKU students visited Joplin, Mo., last week to assist in tornado relief efforts. Above are two examples of the devastation they saw during their trip. "The recovery is going to take years," WKU history instructor David Serafini said. (Photos courtesy of David Serafini)
WKU history instructor David Serafini and seven students returned early Monday from a weekend relief project in Joplin, Mo., but the group is already making plans to return.
“There are no words to describe it,” Serafini said of the devastation caused by the May 22 tornado. “You see it on TV or the Internet, but until you’re there you don’t understand.
“You want to cry. There’s nothing left in that ‘dead zone.’ The recovery is going to take years,” said Serafini, advisor for WKU’s Beta Phi Chapter of the Phi Sigma Pi National Honor Fraternity.
The WKU group arrived in Joplin on Friday evening and worked Saturday and Sunday at two homes destroyed by the tornado. The group assisted Relief Spark, a volunteer organization that is working on debris removal and salvage operations as well as providing food for volunteers and others affected by the tornado.
“It’s almost cliché to say it was a life-changing or life-altering experience, but it was,” Serafini said. “I was so proud of the students. Here’s a group of young men and women who could have been doing anything else that weekend, but they weren’t because I mentioned this trip and they wanted to go.
A highlight of the WKU students' trip to Joplin was presenting a red towel to Tracey Presslor, aunt of Will Norton whose story inspired David Serafini to organize the trip. Front row (from left): Mason Myatt, David Serafini, Tracey Presslor, Sara Calvert, Anna Bewley, Adam Reynolds; back row: Chris Storath, Kaleb Crowe, Adam Rzeszowski.
“That’s the Spirit of WKU. These kids who took time out of their lives to help others – that is the Spirit of WKU.”
Students participating in the trip were Phi Sigma Pi members Anna Bewley, an elementary education major from Bowling Green; Sara Calvert, an elementary education major from Scottsville; Adam Reynolds, a pre-veterinary medicine major from Owensboro; Chris Storath, a history/social studies major from Hendersonville, Tenn., and Adam Rzeszowski, a photojournalism/English major from Bowling Green; as well as Mason Myatt, a nursing major from Glasgow, and Kaleb Crowe, a history/social studies major from Tompkinsville. (More: Read student reflections about their experiences in Joplin, Mo.)
The group not only shared the WKU spirit with the families they assisted but with Tracey Presslor, the aunt of storm victim Will Norton whose story inspired Serafini to organize the relief trip.
“My most memorable moment of the trip was, by far, getting to meet Tracey Presslor,” Chris Storath said. “Her powerful story gave us all the motivation to want to come back and help out in anyway we can.”
Norton had just graduated from high school on May 22 and was returning home with his father when the tornado struck their vehicle. Norton was listed as missing for five days while Presslor and others used Facebook and television appearances to tell his story. His body was found five days after the storm.
“I was teaching a May term course and was following Will’s story every day,” Serafini said. “That inspired me. Here’s a future college student who had his whole life ahead of him. I said to myself, ‘we have to go’.”
Serafini contacted Presslor and she met the WKU group on Sunday afternoon. He and the students presented her with a WKU red towel signed by the group and included “Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way,” the phrase Presslor and the family used while searching for Norton.
The WKU group worked to remove debris from this house in Joplin, Mo.
Members of the WKU group were joined by three Phi Sigma Pi members from the University of Central Missouri to demolish what was left of two homes, to move debris and to salvage items such as baseball cards, stuffed animals and even one child’s birth certificate.
“Though this barely made a dent in all of the work that has to be done, I truly felt that we gave a helping hand to the people in need,” Storath said.
Anna Bewley called the weekend “truly a priceless experience.”
“I’m so happy that I was able to go and help out,” Bewley said. “It is something I will never forget. To see so many people coming from all over the country to help those in need is remarkable.”
The WKU students also were touched by the story of an elderly man and his daughter whose house was nearly leveled by the tornado. The cleanup project at the house was the first for the WKU group.
“The most memorable part of the whole experience was talking to the owner of the house and his daughter about being in the house as the tornado passed over, how they were holding on to anything they could, that the daughter was being held down by her 89-year-old father keeping her from flying outside,” Kaleb Crowe said.
“I honestly wish everyone in America could see it for themselves, just so they could know how much help is needed there,” Crowe said. “It will be years until the people of Joplin will be able to see their city anywhere close to what their city was before. I plan to return to Joplin, I plan on helping as much as I can, I plan on spreading the word to people, I plan on making as much of a difference as I possibly can — no matter how small that may be — something is better than nothing.”
Chris Storath and Adam Reynolds take a break during cleanup work in Joplin, Mo.
Mason Myatt agreed. “The thing I came back with after the trip to Joplin is there is no way to describe the amount of destruction the tornado caused,” Myatt said. “There will be people and families without homes for years. It will take years for anything to start to resemble Joplin and even then it may never be the same. But the people there are amazing, and so thankful for any help they can get. And I feel that everyone should try to help in any way possible because I believe they would help us if something like this occurred here.”
Even though they haven’t set a date yet, the WKU group is planning a return trip. “We wish we could have stayed longer and we will be back. I don’t know how we cannot go back,” Serafini said. “If something like this happened to Bowling Green, I’d want a college teacher to watch the news and say to students that we should go.”
The WKU group will be honored July 22 as Hometown Champions at the Bowling Green Hot Rods game; Crowe will throw out the first pitch.
After working to demolish what was left of a house, the WKU group posed with the home's owners.
Contact: David Serafini, (270) 303-1306 or david.serafini@wku.edu
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