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BY ANAGHA KRISHNAN

In print | Published September 13, 2007

Marissa Davis ’08 first learned about Swarthmore College through her older sister. After a number of visits, she was convinced that the intimate, yet diverse environment of the college would provide her with the opportunities of a lifetime.

“I felt that I could blossom here,” Davis said, “My time at Swarthmore showed me paths I had never known were open to me.”

One such path led her to a hurricane-stricken New Orleans, where she went on to orchestrate the construction of a youth library for an afflicted community. While she was already involved in various extracurricular activities during her first two years at Swarthmore, it was in the area of community service that Davis really came into her own.

Her dedication to New Orleans began in her sophomore year with an assignment for Spanish class. “We were asked to find a news article in Spanish,” Davis recalls.

“Katrina had happened two days [earlier], so I found an article about the aftermath.”

Deeply affected by what she read, Davis decided that she had to help out in whatever way possible. “I didn’t know what I was doing” she said, “but I knew that I needed to do something, to commit my time and energy in some way.” After two months of brainstorming, Davis led the “Immediate Direct Relief” committee in the school’s first ever trip to New Orleans.

The first visit, which took place over Winter Break in 2005, consisted of six students participating in a general cleanup effort. Davis was profoundly moved by the pathos before her.

“It blew my mind,” she said, “These people had their whole lives ahead of them and it was all wiped away in an instant. No one was helping them, and that hurt my heart.” With a renewed sense of purpose, Davis planned the second visit and went on to serve as a counselor in a New Orleans summer camp, where she made the acquaintance of local community center manager, Carlette Washington.

In her junior year, upon her return from a semester abroad, Davis was eager to continue her work in New Orleans. A transition needed to occur from “immediate response” to a more structured form of assistance.

It was then that she remembered Washington, and eventually decided to raise money for the Cutoff Community Center. Living expenses proved to be the largest difficulty, but Davis was able to obtain a donation from the Lang Center.

She traveled to New Orleans in 2007 during her Spring Break and presented the Cutoff Community Center with $1000 for various school supplies. The group also organized afternoon tutoring sessions and Dance and Arts workshops.

Davis, however, remained unsatisfied. She wanted to do more to create an enduring bond with the community. As she turned her attention toward the local book drives that had been held, Davis came up with the idea of a youth library. While she received a Swarthmore Foundation Grant for her own living expenses, the funds for the actual library proceedings came out of her own pocket.

“I was out $700,” Davis reminisces, “But those kids went through a lot, and were forgotten. I wanted to show them that someone respected them, and the bright young men and women they could become.”

Davis had envisioned an efficient and colorful learning space and worked on making that into a reality during the tail – end of this past summer.

She was simultaneously juggling work on her thesis on Black Culture in New Orleans. She attributes her success (and sanity) in this endeavor to her younger sister, Marsha Davis ’10, who managed a lot of the library work with local volunteers when Davis was researching for her thesis.

The Opening Ceremony, which took place on August 9th, saw the Davis sisters as the recipients of a proclamation from the city of New Orleans in honor of their work. Davis described how the place was instantly filled with children and parents eagerly going through the material. “That is what it was all about, creating a space for parents and children to spend time with each other,”she said.

After being featured in local newspapers, Davis was inundated with phone calls inquiring about further donations.

Yet, Davis still considers her job far from over. Her future goals include raising campus awareness with her new organization at Swarthmore, NOLA-RIZE, teaming up with faculty volunteers for future workshops and creating potential internships in the city. Her fondest wish, however, is to encourage similar behavior among her beneficiaries.

“I hope that the library inspires the members of the community, so that they can do the same for someone else one day,” Davis said.

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