When Syracuse University students went to Puerto Rico last month to provide disaster relief, they came across citizens who had lived through the harsh realities of Hurricane Maria and still wanted to serve others.

Sabrina Maggiore came across a woman who, instead of accepting help, was offering food and water to the volunteers.

“We all were sort of taken aback by the fact that this woman was spending much of her time trying to be accommodating to us while we were there to try and help her,” said Maggiore, a sophomore broadcast and digital journalism major, in an email.

Maggiore was one of 23 SU students who, along with two advisers, traveled to the island from Dec. 16 to Dec. 22. Their goal was to help residents rebuild after the storm that devastated their homeland last fall.

The students had to go through an interview process and were selected from a pool of 193 applicants, said Baptist Campus Chaplain and trip leader Devon Bartholomew in an email. Bartholomew said that he, along with volunteers from the Student Association, spent more than 200 hours recruiting members and planning logistics. Hendricks Chapel and SA supported the trip through funding and made sure that the university protocols were followed.

The trip brought students and advisers into four different neighborhoods near Carolina, Puerto Rico, where they observed communities that Hurricane Maria tore through. While on the island, the team distributed 140 water filtration systems, 200 FEMA-resourced packages of food and 65 hygiene kits, Bartholomew said. He also said they prepared 50 bags of the FEMA-provided food to be distributed by future disaster relief groups.

Maggiore connected the Puerto Rico she saw in December to the Puerto Rico she saw this past summer, when she visited a month prior to Hurricane Maria.

“A place I had visited just months ago was now completely without electricity and struggling to get on its feet, and that was super surreal,” Maggiore said in an email. “I knew I had to do something to help out.”

John Jankovic, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences and the student leader of the trip, said his favorite experience was interacting with a citizen who remained positive in the face of such devastation.

“There was this old man who went by the name ‘Papa Noel’ because of his big white beard,” Jankovic said in an email. “He was so positive and happy despite having no power and his house destroyed. It was really eye-opening and showed how less material things matter.”

Elissa Candiotti, a senior broadcast and digital journalism major, co-created an Instagram account with Maggiore while on the trip because they were unsatisfied with the media coverage of Puerto Rico.

“Although I could come back from the trip and share these sights and stories with others, it is vital we hear it from the people of Puerto Rico themselves,” Candiotti said in an email. “This led me to the idea to create an Instagram account in which I would allow the incredible people we met throughout the trip to share their stories through their own words, with their own hearts.”

The students who visited Puerto Rico are back on campus and working to create a new student organization known as Orange Relief, Jankovic said. The organization will allow SU students to continue assisting in disaster relief and encourage students to partake in volunteer work on campus and abroad, he said.

The students will give three presentations on their experiences in Puerto Rico: one on Jan. 23 from noon to 1 p.m. in the Noble Room of Hendricks Chapel, one on Jan. 31 from 7 to 8 p.m. in Huntington Beard Crouse Hall’s Kittredge Auditorium and one on Feb. 4 at 7 p.m. in the Main Chapel of Hendricks Chapel.

Published on January 22, 2018 at 11:36 pm

Contact Lindsay: lccohn@syr.edu