More than 200 Honors College students ended their summers early to travel to Tuscaloosa in order to clean up what was left over from the April tornado that swept through parts of Tuscaloosa.
The volunteer effort, coordinated by Alabama Action and Outdoor Action, two groups involved with the Honors College, is an initiative to introduce Honors students to volunteer work. The recent cleanup effort was geared toward incoming freshmen but had an impact on both the UA campus and the city of Tuscaloosa.
Alabama Action is a group focused on making efforts toward bettering Tuscaloosa’s society, poverty level and culture. Outdoor Action zeros in on the ecological and environmental aspects of Tuscaloosa. Alabama Action is in its 11th year according to UA News.
The Honors students involved with Alabama Action helped renovate and tutor in two schools, Holt Elementary and Collins-Riverside. The volunteers helped landscape outside, worked on classrooms and outdoor play areas and talked with the students of the schools.
Fernanda Lima, a senior and student director of the Honors College, worked with the group at Collins-Riverside Middle School. Lima said the volunteer days were broken up into two parts.
The first half of the day, she said, was spent cleaning up and renovating the school. The second half of the day, each freshman was placed with three to four seventh and eighth grade students. The freshmen mentored their groups and talked with them about their future goals.
“We wanted to make the school look nicer and also raise the students morale,” Lima said. “We wanted to put some spirit back in the school.”
While Alabama Action students were cleaning up inside, Outdoor Action students were helping out in various marshes and streams in and around Tuscaloosa. Randy Mecredy, director of the Alabama Museum of Natural History and Outdoor Action, said the group worked on the environmental issues that arose because of the tornado.
Mecredy said Outdoor Action students spent the week in wells and waterways, removing debris placed there by the April tornado. With a crew of 46 students, 36 of whom were incoming freshmen, Mecredy said he and the Outdoor Action team did ecological surveys on three waterways.
“There was a lot of metal in and around the places we worked on,” Mecredy said.
The group went to the Sipsy River to do a survey on the environment in and around the river, Mecredy said. At Perry Lakes, a wetland park, the team spent two days cleaning up on a service project. They also cleaned up an area of Hurricane Creek that was hit by the tornado.
“You have to think about the type of people these freshmen are,” Lima said. “These students cut their summer a week short to come volunteer. Many of the freshmen involved will continue mentoring students throughout the year.”
