Experiences in Princeville

Herald-Sun -- November 11, 1999
Teens team up for Princeville
Students from the N.C. School of Science & Mathematics help towns'
residents still recovering from Hurricane Floyd
By DANIEL LISTWA
PRINCEVILLE -- A poster hanging inside Princeville's Town hall and
Community Center preaches, from beneath a layer of soot:
>    "All kids deserve and demand an escape from the daily pressures facing
> us in our society."
>    Maybe they do under normal circumstances.
>    But students from the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics on
> Wednesday were not demanding escape form anything.  Instead, 147 of the
> school's 550 juniors and seniors rode two hours by bus to help residents
> here and in neighboring Tarboro still recovering from Hurricane Floyd.
>   "[We want] the students to get a picture of the devastation Hurricane
> Floyd has caused in North Carolina," trip organizer Ginger Wilson said.
> "It was so light in Durham.  In eastern North Carolina, it has wrecked
> lives."
>   Wilson, the heard of the humanities department, and other Science and
> Math faculty planned the event after Floyd's floods canceled a junior
> class trip to Williamsburg, Va., in September.  Amid student requests to
> help flood victims, the faculty responded to a news program in which
> Princeville residents said people had forgotten about them.  At the
> school's request many students also donated their $30 Williamsburg trip
> fee to the towns.
>    "As future leaders, they need to understand that with privilege comes
> responsibility," Wilson said, "and that service to people less privileged
> than you is part of that responsibility."
>    Students, though, were glad to help the towns, which suffered 20-foot
> floodwaters when the Tar River swelled to 43 feet in September.
> Princeville alone lost all 33 of its business, three churches and the
> town's water and sewage-treatment plants.
>    "It costs money to do this,"  junior Brent Hill said.  "They don't
> always get the donations they need.  The $30 can go a long way."
>    But it was Hill and his schoolmates' community service that made a
> visible difference Wednesday.  Nearly 40 students cleaned the Town Hall
> while about 60 others organized a distribution center that will provide
> free clothes, food and toiletries for Princeville's 2,154 residents when
> they return from FEMA trailer parks.
>    At Town Hall, students wearing yellow rubber gloves and face masks
> removed warped documents, twisted metal furniture, and a waterlogged Ms.
> Pac Man machine, setting it all on the lawn in front of the building.
> Others gathered inside, collecting tiles and sewage-stained remains from
> the caved-in ceiling.
>   As a group stood discussing the physics involved in removing a heavy
> Coke machine, supervisors praised their hard work.
>    "It's a good humanitarian effort and a practical education," staff
> member Russell Robinson said. "You can't learn this from a text book.
> This is what you call 'discovery learning.' It's the true essence of a
> field trip."
>    Students said that just passing through Princeville, its now
> uninhabitable houses marked with red X's, was unforgettable.
>    "There was a house on top of a car," senior Kathy Benedict said of the
> ride into town.  "We were like 'Wow!'"
>    Senior Kristina Belcourt, 16, who visited St. Louis after the
> Mississippi River flooded the city in 1997, said the damage in Princeville
> looked far worse.
>    "I can't imagine renovating this place," she said. "It's crazy.
> Everything is destroyed."
>     But Princeville, the country's oldest black-founded town, has already
> hired an architect to restore its 115-year-old Town Hall, which housed the
> first black school in North Carolina.  The town will build a new Town Hall
> but retain the old one as a landmark.
>    At the makeshift distribution center - a do-it-yourself car wash
> destroyed by Floyd - students hauled boxes from the shade of its three
> bays into the sun before separating items into piles for men, women and
> children.
>    "So much has come in," said Science and Math's Wilson.  "Our kids have
> done a good job sorting through it."
>   She also said that the faculty is planning to do a follow-up activity
> for Princeville.
>   Science & Math students, who must complete 60 hours of community service
> to graduate, said volunteering, though disruptive to studies or
> extra-curricular activities, is still worth the effort.
>    "This will last a lot longer," said junior Marisa Biondi, 16, whose
> family received help when Hurricane Fran flooded its Wrightsville Beach
> apartment building.  "It took a week to clean up everything [after Fran].
> This is a good way to give back."
>    Town residents watching the students were thankful for their efforts.
>   "Me and my mom's stuff was ruined," Princeville municipal employee
> Curtis Lloyd, 40 said. "I'm glad people know the town and came to help
> clean it up."