• Baylor coaches, student-athletes serve flood-ravaged Louisiana residents

    Baylor baseball serving in Louisiana

    Over Labor Day weekend, the Baylor softball and baseball teams spent Labor Day weekend in Louisiana — but not for competition, practice, or even team-building. No, the coaches and student-athletes were in Louisiana with one purpose in mind: to serve by doing whatever work was needed.

    After unprecedented flooding hit Louisiana last month, Baylor women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey — a Hammond, La., native — got the ball rolling. With support from the community, Mulkey arranged for a trailer filled with more than $35,000 dollars worth of school supplies to be distributed in flood-stricken Tangipahoa Parish, east of Baton Rouge.

    Baylor softball coach Glenn Moore (who attended college at Northwestern State and later coached at LSU) and baseball coach Steve Rodriguez quickly followed suit, arranging for their teams to spend the holiday weekend lending a hand in some of the areas around Baton Rouge that were hardest hit.

    The Baylor contingent brought with them more than $15,000 in supplies donated by local individuals and businesses, plus $8,000 in cash donated by Baylor fans, softball supporters and others in the Waco area — all of which went directly to victims. Saturday and Sunday, the teams split up around numerous houses in and around the areas hardest hit in Denham Springs, where 90% of homes were flooded, as well as neighboring areas in Baton Rouge. They ripped drywall, took out sheetrock, stripped tile, pulled up carpet, moved heavy household items, and did whatever they could do alleviate the burdens of people who, in many cases, had lost everything and were forced to wait for outside help amidst the devastation.

    “It was overwhelming,” says Moore. “It’s an eerie feeling to see gutted houses and then to realize families had to live in those as they wait for help. Your heart went out to them. Many of them didn’t have flood insurance because their houses were so high up. It was hard to imagine the water coming up that high. Our girls were really motivated by an external force, by the visual of seeing what had happened to our neighbors there. It triggered a response to help, and I’ve never been more proud of a team than what I saw there.”

    “I could relate a little to what they were dealing with,” says Baylor baseball senior Matt Menard, whose own home in Bridge City, Texas, was flooded in 2008 by Hurricane Ike. “It was great to let them know they weren’t alone, that someone was there to help them. It was amazing; everyone there was all smiles to us, even with what they’d been through. They were wondering where to start with all the work each day, and we could be there with 40 guys who could help them.”

    With the clean-up effort expected to extend well into the fall, Baylor students will return to Baton Rouge next month as Baylor Missions leads a fall break trip for students who wish to serve.

    Sic ’em, Baylor servant-leaders!