Katrina survivor gets ISU help

After a coincidental meeting last fall in New Orleans, landscape architecture students at Iowa State University are doing their part to make a Hurricane Katrina survivor’s dreams a reality.

In November, a traveling landscape architecture studio class took a trip to New Orleans to do research. While touring the Lower 9th Ward, they met Robert Green, a hurricane survivor who had lost both his mother and a 4-year-old granddaughter in 2005 to Hurricane Katrina.

Kelly Zolniercyzk, a sophomore in landscape architecture, said Green led the students on a tour of his old neighborhood and showed them the mobile home in which he and four other people had stayed for several years after the disaster.

“He talked about how none of his neighbors wanted to move, how they grew up there and didn’t want to leave,” Zolniercyzk said.

Green was one of the first people to move back to the 9th Ward with the help of actor Brad Pitt’s rebuilding effort, “Make It Right.”

After telling his story, Green shared his idea to create a memorial garden for his mother and granddaughter in the empty lot adjacent to his new home. He invited the students to help him envision what such a garden could look like.

Gary Hightshoe, an ISU professor of landscape architecture and one of the faculty members on the trip, said his class was eager to help Green with his project. The class has stayed in touch with Green. On Tuesday, he visited ISU to take a look at the students’ ideas.

“It’s extremely rewarding,” Hightshoe said. “He’s been very generous in support of their ideas.”

Each student hung his or her blueprints and conceptual drawings on a wall and explained the various features. Some students chose details to honor Green’s relatives; others chose broader representations of the wider New Orleans community.

Green said he was impressed with the interest the students are bringing to the project, and he is looking forward to choosing aspects from several of the students’ ideas to implement in the memorial garden.

“What they are doing for me isn’t just for me, it’s something that’s going to be accessible to the neighbors and anyone coming in,” Green said.

When Green decides which plans to implement, Hightshoe said he wants to send a group of students to New Orleans this fall to start building the memorial.

Working with Green, Hightshoe said, has been a rewarding experience for him and his students.

“For him, it’s not about him,” Hightshoe said. “It’s about the whole community coming together to break bread and tell stories and ultimately to heal.”

« Metro/Region

Share