BonaResponds
No mission is too big, no need is too small
When more than 280 St. Bonaventure University students and community volunteers went
to the Gulf Coast to help with Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts in March of 2006, it was the largest service trip in the history of the University.
It was also the start of one of the most exciting and inspiring groups ever launched on a college campus. BonaResponds has grown from a Katrina relief mission to a volunteer organization that pitches in wherever help is needed.
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The group has gone back to the Gulf Coast several times and plans to return again. It answered calls for help in the Buffalo area when a surprise snowstorm devastated the region in the fall of 2006.
Volunteers went to northern Ohio in October of 2007 after flooding damaged thousands of homes. They have made several trips to Bridge City, Texas, the last being over winter break 2008-09, where flooding from Hurricane Ike heavily damaged nearly every home in the community.
BonaResponds also conducts numerous local services days in the Olean-area, doing everything from building classrooms to painting high schools to cleaning up parks and trails.
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What's BonaResponds up to now?
Click below to find out
www.bonaresponds.org
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It was back to Texas over winter break
BonaResponds volunteers returned to Bridge City, Texas, in January to help victims of Hurricane Ike.
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Alumnus joins BonaResponds effort in Texas
Bill Hammond, '66, shares his story of a "very special experience with a very special group of SBU people."
Click for more
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 Dr. James Mahar, assistant professor of finance at SBU, spearheaded that first Gulf Coast trip and continues to head BonaResponds. Mahar said it was a student's comment on that first trip that helped define for him what BonaResponds would become.
"He said that he was a better person when he was (on the trip), and he challenged us all to be that better people when we went home," said Mahar. "I remember that almost every day."
Neighbor helping neighbor is what it's all about, said Mahar, whether that neighbor is down the street or hours down the highway.
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See the first BonaResponds trip through Mandy's eyes
SBU graduate Mandy Bottomlee was a senior in the Russell J. Jandoli School of Journalism/Mass Communication when BonaResponds went to the Gulf Coast in 2006. She posted daily reports of the clean-up work. You can read those logs by clicking on the links below.
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