Members of the Leonard Carmichael Society (LCS) and the Tufts Christian Fellowship (TCF) took service trips to New Orleans during spring break, improving areas affected by Hurricane Katrina.
The LCS members helped build and renovate homes and community buildings in the heavily damaged Ninth Ward of the city, working with organizations such as Habitat for Humanity and Project Nehemiah. The students assisted with projects ranging from painting a house to gutting an old nursing home.
The Ninth Ward, which borders the Mississippi River, was heavily damaged by flooding in 2005 when the levees along the river broke.
According to LCS President Jen McNally, the flood damage is still serious even though most media coverage of the disaster ended a few
years ago.
"It doesn't even look like New Orleans. It doesn't even look like America at times," McNally said.
The group toured the downtown districts and famous French Quarter of New Orleans before venturing into the disaster area. While these neighborhoods were also affected by the hurricane, they were restored much more quickly after the flood.
The Tufts Christian Fellowship made a separate trip to assist in the efforts to rebuild the city. Due to financing issues, the two groups were unable to travel together.
Sophomore Jenny Lau was the coordinator for this year's LCS trip. She was motivated to plan this year's trip after going on a similar one with the TCF last year; she wanted to help others have a similar experience this spring break.
"I really wanted people to come on this trip so they could see what I saw last year," Lau said. "The victims of Katrina aren't on the news anymore, and just to talk to the residents ... that was something I really wanted my trip volunteers to see and experience."
She explained that her involvement in coordinating the trip helped her gain more from it.
"Having to plan the trip and deal with some of the issues that came up during the trip made me realize the issues facing the victims even more," she said.
Even though the area was flooded years ago, McNally thinks a continued reconstruction effort will be necessary for many more years. "Tufts can be going down there for years to come," she said, suggesting that a New Orleans service trip has the potential to become a long-term tradition at Tufts.
"It was powerful for us and for the people that we helped," she said.
According to McNally, the trip wasn't all hard work and proved to be as enjoyable as it was rewarding. "We worked on our tans while painting," she said.
Lau said the TCF trip was also successful. "My group was awesome," she said. "It was a very rewarding trip."
