News Releases
6/6/06
KU graduate student Lisa Martinez spent her first day in Kansas last August slumped on a milk crate in her brother’s yard, balancing a box of tissues. It was the week Hurricane Katrina took away the 38-year-old single mother’s home, scattered her native New Orleans community and forced her to cancel her dream enrollment in the social welfare program of Tulane University.
That low point is far from the buoyancy and excitement Martinez beams today, as she begins work toward a master’s degree in social welfare at KU.
“I’m beyond elated,” Martinez said. “I’ve read the materials for the summer term, I’ve even written a paper already. This is going to be a story for the grandchildren.”
Martinez wouldn’t be attending KU if it weren’t for the catastrophic storm – and a $15,000 scholarship. The scholarship, which was funded through an anonymous gift to KU Endowment, will help Martinez finish her degree in one year. It will give her more time to spend with her family, including her children, 16-year-old Justin Layton and 11-year-old Keisha Layton, and her partner, Albert Araiza.
Like many people, Martinez said she had no idea that Hurricane Katrina would upend so much of her family’s life.
When told to leave the city in advance of the hurricane, Martinez thought it would be a typical evacuation. She insisted that her family pack light. She left New Orleans with only a pair of flip-flops for shoes and a single change of clothes.
The family motel-hopped across Mississippi and Arkansas for four harrowing nights, unsure where to go as flooding overtook New Orleans. They kept thinking they could return to the city, she said.
It wasn’t until the family settled in Olathe at the home of her brother, Mark Martinez, that she had time to stop and think about what she had left behind. Flooding ruined the first floor of her apartment and destroyed her mother’s home. She could not return home, because there was no guarantee that her children could return to school or that the family would have a place live.
“When I sent the letter to Tulane saying I couldn’t go to school there, I sat in a puddle of tears for days,” she said.
Her outlook began to improve when she met Robert G. Estell, recruitment coordinator for the KU School of Social Welfare at the KU Edwards Campus. He “went far and above” her expectations to smooth out the application process, Martinez said.
Her next challenge was finding a way to afford tuition. Her undergraduate experience was still fresh on her mind, a time when she juggled single motherhood, two jobs and her education.
“I didn’t start my undergraduate degree until I was 30 years old,” she said. “It took six years to complete. I felt absent from my children’s lives, and I didn’t want to do that to them again.”
Receiving the scholarship allayed her concerns about affording tuition and completing her education in a timely fashion, Martinez said. It has opened new possibilities and rooted her in Kansas.
She is still sorting out her emotions from the effects of the hurricane. She has nightmares about being on the run, evacuating all over again. But the experience has given her something positive, she said.
“I think it will make me a better social worker someday,” said Martinez, who hopes to become a family therapist when she completes her degree. “When a client says, ‘I’m lost,’ I’ll know what it’s like to start from nothing, to be that lost.”
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