United for Biloxi volunteers eat lunch and attend an orientation session after getting off the buses in Biloxi. Katie Roupe | Daily Kent Stater

Credit: DKS Editors

Nearly there

We are so close we can smell the Gulf Coast. Ken Smith, our bus driver, said we’re two hours outside Mobile, Ala. We have stopped for a half hour to eat breakfast at some nondescript highway exit town. …

–Steve Bushong

We are here

We are finally here after a 22-hour drive. The temperature is about 80 degrees and I’m loving every minute of my time here. When we first arrived all the volunteers jumped out of the overheated buses and gathered for a brief orientation where the volunteers were greeted with t-shirts and a sack lunch. …

–Katie Roupe

Remember

My name is Sarah McGrath and I am a junior magazine journalism major. Biloxi is more than just an alternative spring break for me, it is a chance to revisit memories from my childhood. When I was younger I spent numerous summers visiting my grandparents, who lived just two hours away from Biloxi in a city called Hattiesburg. I have so many memories of Biloxi before Hurricane Katrina. I remember the old houses that lined the shores of Biloxi. I remember the casinos before they were destroyed. I have pictures of myself playing in the Gulf Coast waters. …

–Sarah McGrath

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