Schools
Meramec Sculpture Students Lend Hand in Joplin
"There is still much work to do," says Joe Chesla, Meramec sculpture professor who took his students to volunteer in Joplin last weekend.
Weeks after the Joplin tornado hit, Rebecca Shaffer, a art student, went to Joplin as part of a volunteer group to help in the reconstruction process.
Shaffer was speechless when she saw the devastation, she said.
“As an artist, it was visually devastating,” Shafer said. “I thought, ‘How can I make this place more beautiful.'”
Shaffer said she returned from Joplin a changed person. Shafer went back to her art professors at Meramec to see if she could get other fellow students to join her in her trip. Last weekend, the first group of Meramec sculpture students went to Joplin to give their time and physical strength in two days of volunteer work.
“As an artist I am drawn to action,” said Joe Chesla, Shaffer’s sculpture professor, who took the students to Joplin last Saturday. “I want to take my sculpture students down to volunteer because I want them to experience what is going on and I want to empower them to understand, ‘You guys have a great ability, you need to put it into action now.’”
Chesla said even thought it’s been five months since the tornado hit, not many people are aware that there is still much work left to do.
“It’s pretty insane,” Chesla said. “If you look at it now it’s almost more devastating now. Immediately after the disaster, it was all destroyed, but at least there was something there. Now there is nothing there. It’s like a desert of sorts; just long rolling hills where something came through and took it all away.”
Although she did not go on this last trip, Megan Boyd, who studies photography at Meramec, accompanied Shafer in an earlier volunteer trip to Joplin. Boyd said she did not feel like donating food or writing a check was a wholesome way to help the residents in Joplin.
“For me that’s not enough,” Boyd said. “I wanted to be more in touch with the world and with reality.”
Chesla said after his most recent trip last weekend, his students were excited about the work they did and asking when they could do it again.
“They all came out learning a lot about themselves,” Chesla said. “They came empowered and with an understanding that they have something to offer.”
Shaffer and Chesla said in the future there would be other opportunities for both Meramec students and Kirkwood residents to go to Joplin and help. For more information, go to www.rebuildjoplin.org.