College students return to New Orleans to help with recovery

NEW ORLEANS – It’s more carpentry, painting and house-gutting along with more cerebral work for college students hitting the Gulf Coast for another spring break amid the devastation from the 2005 hurricanes, Katrina and Rita.
A group from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and other Harvard graduate schools is helping residents in the hard-hit Broadmoor neighborhood devise a long-term recovery plan. Students from a number of other schools are helping out in the local school system.
“We’re not just gutting anymore,” said Brittany Allen, a senior in film studies at Ohio State University. “We’re moving on, and branching out. One team is tutoring in the schools, another team is putting up Sheetrock, and one team took New Orleans students on a field trip to the aquarium.”
Still, house-gutting and carpentry remain the most in demand volunteer work almost 19 months after Katrina, according to various volunteer groups, who add that as waiting lists for house-gutting dwindle, waiting lists for the next step drywalling, painting and other construction projects are on the rise.
The same has been reported on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and in southwestern Louisiana, which was hard-hit by Hurricane Rita in 2005.
“The house I worked on, one team had already repaired the roof, so we came in and started doing the flooring, tore out old floor, put in some insulation, new drywall,” said 20-year-old Adam Harris, a junior majoring in business at the University of Michigan at Dearborn.
Harris, who was in the Lake Charles, La., area working with a team from United Way, said training was provided onsite for many projects, such as hanging drywall.
The thousands of students willing to help with manual labor have been a source of joy, and relief for many recovery-weary residents among them New Orleans resident Michael Blouin.
“I’m very, very thankful for this,” said Blouin, 47, who has been living in a federally issued trailer while refurbishing his home in the city’s Uptown neighborhood.