Journey of giving

It was one of those times when people ask themselves, "If not me, who?"

It was one of those times when people ask themselves, "If not me, who?"

People across the Flathead heard that question when Hurricane Katrina cut a 400-mile swath of destruction across the south. More than a few, like John and Margie Donoghue, put their lives on hold to provide care and comfort to Katrina's victims.

The Lake Blaine couple got involved after reading an article in the Inter Lake asking for volunteers for the Red Cross' massive effort.

Both 73 years old, the two might not seem the obvious candidates. But they were deeply touched by the human tragedy played out on the television and other media.

"We thought, 'We're retired and we're strong and healthy,'" Margie said.

By following the tug of their hearts, the two had three weeks that will live in their memories forever.

They served a populace left with little but their lives, yet the people they helped showed little of the anger the Donoghues were warned to expect. Instead, there was a lot of gratitude from the people who took to calling Margie "Baby" and "Baby Girl."

"Can you imagine at my age," she said with a laugh. "I thought it was so cute."

Their odyssey into disaster volunteering started with an introductory session with about 20 people. By the end of the exhaustive

Red Cross training, about half of the initial volunteers remained.

Within a few weeks, the call to service came.

The couple flew to Baton Rouge, then traveled to their duty station in a shelter set up in the little town of Gonzales.

Its residents were people left with little choice but to remain when the hurricane struck.

"They truly were the poorest of the poor," John said.

The flood after the hurricane took everything the people had worked a lifetime to accumulate.

The Donoghues were astounded when they toured the area of destruction.

"You just stood there in awe," she said. "It was like driving through miles and miles and miles of a gigantic dump yard."

At times, they had to drive around a house dropped in the middle of a road. Nothing was left to salvage.

It was a sobering realization that the people who lived here had nothing - no house, no job, no town.

But they did have thousands of people who came from all over the world to help. The Red Cross had recruited and dispatched the Donoghues along with about 85,000 other people.

While the couple had spent many years volunteering, this experience was unique in many ways - from the plight of the people they served to the living quarters they shared. They spent their three weeks sleeping on the floor of a church, elbow to elbow with about 100 other people.

Margie recalled the snoring was deafening at times.

"But we were so tired, I never slept so good," she said.

Her first job was serving one section of the huge shelter which housed up to 900 people.

"We saw that their every need was met," she said.

Red Cross workers were trained to respect the residents' privacy, asking permission to enter their space or take their photo. When invited in, Margie was impressed by how tidy the people kept their small spaces and how they added personal touches.

After serving the section, Margie moved on to a beverage distribution center where she handed out coffee, milk and every type of juice imaginable. John said he realized how valuable that was as he labored in the heat and high humidity.

"I operated a showering station," John said.

He was responsible for operating one of 32 bright yellow tents. They were designed as decontamination units but worked well as portable showers.

According to John, the toughest part of the job was the sanitation procedure. He had to completely disassemble the unit in the process of scrubbing it down.

"I would go in with sanitation solution made up with chlorine bleach," John said.

A diesel generator provided the power to keep the water heated to a temperature of 85 to 95 degrees.

After three weeks of service, the couple came home with a new perspective on emergency preparedness.

"It really begins with the individual," John said.

The couple agreed that the experience of serving the hurricane victims was a blessing to their lives.

"It was just the most remarkable thing to be with these people," Margie said.

Another retired Flathead Valley resident, JoAnne Blake, 70, had the same reaction to the residents of Louisiana.

Like the Donoghues, she responded to the article in the Inter Lake looking for Red Cross volunteers.

"I'd been in Louisiana during a 20-state, five-month tour (last spring)," she said. "I just felt the people were so sweet and so kind."

As a woman traveling alone, Blake was grateful for the help she received on that visit. She recalled a woman who walked a mile and a half to guide her into the French Quarter.

"They were just like that," she said.

Blake said the people she met on her spring trip insisted she taste local favorites like grits and a special Cajun sausage called boudin. The crisp fried-pigskin snack called cracklins made the best impression.

"If you get it fresh, it's wonderful," she said with a laugh.

With the faces and hospitality of her Louisiana friends so fresh in her mind, Blake jumped at the chance to help out Katrina victims through the Red Cross.

"My whole professional life was in counseling," she said.

From Baton Rouge, Blake was dispatched to a shelter in Slidell, La. She spent four days there helping people cope as well as meeting special needs such as a lady who had lost her teeth and two others who needed toenail attention.

"Of course, everyone told me their life stories," she said.

Blake recalled the harrowing tale of a diabetic woman in a wheelchair who had been missed when evacuation teams came through her building. As the water rose, the woman took the hose from her oxygen and lashed herself to a cooler as a floatation device. She floated until daylight, bumping into other people in the process.

"The next day she found out the other people had died," Blake said.

After Slidell, Blake served in Mandeville, where she helped disabled and elderly victims of Katrina apply for $360 for clothing and other goods.

"I also worked with anyone who was very upset," she said.

Like the Donoghues, Blake was amazed at how few were angry. Mostly, she said they were so grateful to people coming from as far away as Montana to help them.

She was also impressed by how people down south shared their houses and even tiny apartments with multiple people.

"It was very touching," she said. "You could see the caring and the love."

There were even some humorous stories like the 83-year-old lady who said she had the time of her life getting pulled up from the roof of her house at the end of a rope under a helicopter.

"She said, 'I was swinging back and forth in that seat,'" Blake said with a laugh. "She said, 'That was so fun.'"

Blake came home at the end of October. But she has already volunteered to return at Christmas time when she thinks people will need counseling more than ever.

It doesn't bother her to give up her holiday.

"I think our mission in life is to help one another," Blake said.

LYNN SCHNUR of Kalispell couldn't agree more. Her spiritual commitment to serve motivated her to spend her two weeks of vacation in Mississippi with Hope Force International.

Schnur, a certified nurse assistant at Kalispell Regional Medical Center, heard about the relatively new Hope Force ministry through her church, the New Covenant Fellowship.

Kalispell resident Robyn Balcom, a local recruiter for Hope Force, linked Schnur up with a relief effort coordinated with the Salvation Army in Biloxi, Miss.

Schnur went out each day with four or five other Hope Force volunteers on board a mobile canteen that fed hurricane victims hot meals.

"We also got to be part of an emotional, spiritual team," Schnur said.

She said that part of Mississippi received the worst wrath of the hurricane itself. Like the Donoghues, Schnur found that "war zone" was the only phrase that adequately described what she saw.

Schnur heard stories from people who lived only because they jumped on boats that washed in when a wall of water or storm surge devastated the coast as the hurricane hit.

"The surge was about 25 feet high," she said.

Schnur said she learned a lot from her time of service with Hope Force and the Salvation Army.

"It was just an incredible experience," she said. "People were so thankful."

Like the Donoghues and Blake, Schnur was impressed by the number of people willing to suspend their own lives to help others.

In the Flathead Valley, other Red Cross volunteers included Trish Christofferson, Debra Barrett, Sue Fisher and Jean Agather.

According to Balcom, Hope Force International has also arranged for many local volunteers, including her husband Perry and Youth with a Mission members, to work with the Salvation Army on the relief effort.

Balcom also served as the contact point for a group of alumni from the Montana Institute of Massage Therapy who worked with the Salvation Army. Michael Eayrs, administrator of the school, said each of the therapists considered it a life-changing journey.

"They worked on people who were bringing bodies back to the morgue," Eayrs said. Helping to relieve the high stress of such a job was just one of many ways to help after the monumental disaster of Katrina.

Blake and the Donoghues encourage others to call the Red Cross at 752-6433 to find out about volunteering. Balcom also asks that anyone interested in helping victims through Hope Force International call her at 752-2247.

"They're going to need help for a long, long time," Balcom said.

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com