"Faith and Hope in New Orleans:
 Dominicans after Katrina"

St. Mary’s Dominican High School:
 A Wave of Success

 BEFORE KATRINA
     August 2005

This school is a community in the Dominican tradition of prayer
and blessing

• 1,065 students study and grow here

• A close bond with alumnae enriches the community spirit in St. Mary’s

• Faculty and students make good use of the peaceful chapel, the well-equipped library, technology centers, band and art rooms.

• President Cynthia Thomas expresses frustration with the lack of progress on the construction of Siena Center; what should have been an enclosed building by August 2005 was “only a concrete base and steel frame”

 

AFTER KATRINA

         2007

• 18 inches of water filled the school; the mold grew, causing $4.5 million in damage

• In Atlanta, President Cynthia Thomas received a phone call from a school parent, “You will have a lot to face and we are going to be with you.”

• The administration, faculty and staff located and created an on-going personal connection with every student in their evacuation sites

• The Siena Center contractor switched projects, transferring to recovery work with a professional recovery contractor

• The library had to be re-stacked; mold destroyed all the books and resource materials

• Shelving had to be replaced in the band and art rooms

• Dominican families, alumnae, other US Dominican high schools, including MSDA in Caldwell, and generous corporate supporters replaced furnishings and instructional supplies; school re-opened five months after Katrina with an enrollment at 87% of pre-Katrina levels

• In September 2006, Siena Center athletic facility and dance studio opened because Katrina did not damage “only the concrete base and steel frame” completed before the storm!

• In 2007 – two years after Katrina hit the city - 34 teachers who lost their homes still live in FEMA trailers
   

Snapshot text by Peggy Ryan, OP (Caldwell)

 

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