Kenosha News
Tuesday January 9, 2007
After helping to rebuild a high school library decimated by Hurricane Katrina, Tremper High School is working to put music back into New Orleans’ McDonogh High School.
Tremper sent about 9,000 pounds of books to McDonogh in November after teacher and girls soccer coach Todd Hardy suggested a service learning partnership with that school while its students struggled to bounce back without much of what Kenosha students take for granted.
Hardy and McDonogh Principal Donald Jackson set to filling McDonogh’s library, emptied for fears that mold would take over after the hurricane clean up.
“He says, ‘Our school is the only one that even looks like it has a library,” Hardy said of Jackson.
Now, with the Mardi Gras season little more than a month off, McDonogh’s band has been invited to march in no fewer than six parades. But they have a problem.
“They have 80 members in their band, but only 30 instruments,” said Polly Amborn, Tremper music teacher. “That makes it hard to hold rehearsal.”
Hardy said most of the students lost their personal instruments in the storm, taxing the school-owned instrument inventory.
“I can take a school instrument home on Monday to practice, but I have to have it back on Tuesday so you can take it home to practice,” he said, “You have to have it back on Wednesday so she can take it home to practice. So you may only get to practice one day a week.”
That situation could be hard for students in the Kenosha Unified School District’s vaunted music program to imagine.
“I’ve been talking to our kids about how important music is to them,” Amborn said. “What if this building burned down? How would you feel if you couldn’t come to this class?”