HEROES of HARVEY
A LESSON IN HELPING
Two Pershing teachers create a new bedroom for a flooded student.
Teachers are a tight bunch, looking after one another in and out of school.
That’s how it was when Hurricane Harvey sent 2 feet of water into the Braes Heights home of Rachel and David Burgan. David is a physical education teacher and coach at Pershing Middle School and Rachel taught at Pershing before she became magnet coordinator at Bellaire High School. Their son Braden, 14, is a student at Pershing, and daughter Brianna, 17 and a senior at Lamar High School, went to middle school there, too.
The Burgans had evacuated to Dallas for the storm, but their neighbors had keys to their home, and their Pershing family knew they’d need help as news spread of the extent of Braes Bayou flooding.
When the family returned to Houston, friends and family — including Pershing teachers Dawn Harrison and Penny Jones — were already mucking out their home and piling debris at the curb.
“We just did it because we knew them, and they needed help. They were going to have to fix their house with FEMA money, and they’re both teachers,” Jones said of the heartbreaking scene. Harrison and Jones decided to adopt Brianna’s bedroom as a project.
Harrison is a big DIY’er and the two women set about gathering new furniture and fixing it up to give Brianna the room she’s dreamed of. They made a bed out of pallettes and strung fairy lights around it. An antique vanity got a coat of paint, and now the teen has a beautiful place to put on makeup.
Brianna is thrilled with what they did.
“I don’t even know how to describe it — it’s an oasis. I had a vision of what I wanted it to look like. I made a Pinterest board and sent it to Penny and Dawn, and they created my vision,” Brianna said. “My room before was pretty simple, nothing fancy like I have now.”
Teachers create new bedroom for teenage student