Doris Voitier is about to receive one of this country’s premier awards, the JFK Profile in Courage Award, given to only one or two persons a year for showing courage in the face of overwhelming odds.
Doris Voitier is the superintendent of the St. Bernard School System, in the parish just below New Orleans.
A few weeks after Katrina, when everyone was saying St. Bernard Parish was destroyed and most leaders were still shaking their heads and wondering what to do, Doris Voitier decided if St. Bernard were to get on its feet, the schools would have to be operating. Problem is, they were all flooded and ruined, every last one of them. So, she had a little talk with the FEMA people, found out they weren’t going to do anything, and took matters into her own hands.
She took out a loan for $17 million and ordered 22 portable classrooms and 107 travel trailers for school employees, all of whom had lost their homes. Then she announced that school would reopen only 11 weeks after Katrina. Incidentally, she spent $22,000 for each trailer in contrast with the $60,000 which FEMA would eventually pay, according to all accounts.
Doris Voitier traveled to Baton Rouge and spent a day with the banks consolidating the various accounts her schools had. “We could sort it out later,” she said. “Right now, we needed cash.” She made sure the premiums were being paid on the health insurance for employees, and covered the payroll, all of which came to $1 million a month.
Voitier told a FEMA representative that she needed hot meals for her students. She was told that despite earlier assurances, FEMA would not be able to cover that, and that she should consider cold sandwiches or military MREs. “No,” said the superintendent, “The children will have hot meals.”
She hired a Chalmette restaurant owner to cook the meals on a barge in the Mississippi River and sent FEMA the bill for $27,000. After seven months of haggling, FEMA paid the bill.