Nursing students assist Red Cross with hurricane evacuee care

Fort Worth, TX

9/23/2008

By: Victoria Maranan, TCU Daily Skiff

Nursing students are working with the local American Red Cross to provide health care for Hurricane Ike evacuees, a Harris College of Nursing and Health Sciences professor said.

Dr. Lavonne Adams, assistant professor of nursing, said the local Red Cross contacted the Harris College for volunteers.

"The offer was made to nursing faculty at TCU," she said. "There are some faculty already working with the Red Cross before they called so they made arrangements to take their students with them."

Dr. Adams said student volunteers gain clinical time by helping out at the shelters. Clinicals are times when nursing students apply what they learned in the classroom in the real world by working and observing in various hospitals.

Student volunteers provided health assistance to the evacuees in the shelters, Dr. Adams said.

"They were able to provide some basic first-aid care and mental health assessment and care," she said.

Nursing students were placed throughout local shelters to help out. On campus, Kappa Sigma fraternity held a can drive to help victims of Hurricane Ike.

Josh Jemente, the president of Kappa Sigma, said the drive started informally when some members were affected by Hurricane Gustav.

"We wanted to get involved after Hurricane Gustav so we collected some cans," he said. "Then the following week, we heard about Hurricane Ike devastating the area."

Kappa Sigma presented its cause to the Panhellenic Council and got its support, Jemente said.

"The sororities collected 500 to 600 cans and our chapter collected about 2,000 cans," Jemente said.

Kappa Sigma's goal was to collect 8,000 cans, roughly one can per TCU student. The fraternity is working with the Tarrant County Food Bank and all donations were sent to the affected areas as well as the evacuees in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

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