In December 2005, a group of New Paltz students participated in the American Red Cross Hurricane Katrina relief effort and witnessed how disaster can bring people together.

Nellie Afshar, Jemma Binder and Jessica Walsh went to New Orleans to help bring food and supplies to victims of Hurricane Katrina. The deployment served as part of the fieldwork component of the disaster mental health minor at the college for Afshar, Binder and fellow undergraduate students Dawn Birk and Zachary Joyce, who were also deployed.

As a graduate student, Walsh did not receive college credit, but benefited from shadowing mental health workers for two days. She said she became involved with people in their homes, and she learned a lot from those who were dealing with grief and confusion as a result of the hurricane.

The group witnessed people pulling together to help one another obtain basic necessities such as food, water and shelter. "Seeing that sense of community restored my faith," said Jessica.

The significance of sharing a simple holiday greeting became apparent to Nellie when a woman began weeping upon hearing the words, "Happy New Year." The college junior did the only thing she could – she responded with a hug.

Strangers before the trip, they quickly developed a sense of familiarity, a community of their own. Even though they were sent out to different destinations, they witnessed the same things: overturned cars, houses without roofs, and people searching for loved ones. But at the end of the day, when the Emergency Relief Vehicles (ERV) were cleaned and stocked for the next day, they would come together for food and to talk.

The students said they felt supported by people such as James Halpern, professor and director of the Institute for Disaster Mental Health, who would stop by and check on them at night.

They returned home a week and a half before classes started in the spring, enough time to register what they had witnessed and reacclimate to their surroundings before heading back to New Paltz for another semester. "I didn't realize how tired I was until I got back," said Jemma. "We were in constant motion."

Since returning they've had to answer a lot of questions. The group served as speakers at the Institute for Disaster Mental Health's annual conference in April. It has been a task that has proven to be more difficult than expected.

"The pictures in your head are so clear, but it's hard to articulate," Jemma said. "It's almost an injustice to those there that we're not able to explain."