AUGUSTA (AP) – During the summer of 2004, Aisha Crenshaw of New Orleans helped to move boulders and plant trees while working as an AmeriCorps volunteer in Maine.
Crenshaw worked along the shores of Maranacook Lake in Readfield, where she made friends with property owners Margaret and Norman Bourget. After Crenshaw left, the Bourgets kept in touch with the vivacious 20-year-old – but lost contact with her after Hurricane Katrina hit.
Now, after a weeklong search that involved the whole staff of the Bourget family law office in Augusta, the Bourgets have found Crenshaw.
“We had our secretaries and everybody searching,” said Margaret Bourget. “Everybody was on the computer. They gave us so many numbers, and we followed them down and had many disappointments.”
The family knew Crenshaw had been a freshman at the University of New Orleans before the hurricane struck. Her mother’s house became deluged by Hurricane Katrina’s floods, as did her dorm room, Bourget added.
Last Wednesday, Bourget located Crenshaw through the Red Cross Internet page.
“We found out she was alive, and she was searching for her mother,” Bourget said Friday.
She talked to Crenshaw at her dormitory room at her new college, Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and found she had only the clothes she was wearing when she fled. She had lost everything else to flooding.
“We sent her the amount we would have given to the relief fund. The first thing she was going to do is buy clothes,” said Bourget. “We’ve talked to her since, and she is kind of relaxed more now and is most appreciative and does remember who we are and the good times we had.”
While with AmeriCorps, Crenshaw worked in Connecticut, New York, Maine and other states. In Maine, she worked in Readfield with 10 AmeriCorps volunteers.
Crenshaw said she was astounded by the extent of the search by the couple she had met for only a few days.
“I felt so loved and appreciated. I was like, I have friends.’ I was so happy to hear from them,” said Crenshaw, adding, “I’m grateful my family and I are alive.”
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Information from: Kennebec Journal, http://www.kjonline.com/
AP-ES-09-10-05 1333EDT
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