Almost three years after the Hurricane Katrina disaster, New Orleans is still rebuilding and requires both resources and help - and members of the Penn community are providing them.
Twenty-five Penn faculty and staff volunteers went to New Orleans last week to help with the reconstruction effort by working on a Habitat for Humanity construction site for five days.
Since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August 2005, Habitat for Humanity has been a major contributor in the effort to revive the city. The group is currently the largest home-building group in New Orleans and plans to build hundreds of houses throughout the year.
During their trip, Penn faculty stayed at Camp Hope, a housing facility for Habitat for Humanity volunteers. The group worked primarily on three houses in St. Bernard Parish, an area which suffered significant structural damage during the Katrina disaster.
St. Bernard Parish was hit especially hard by the hurricane - National Public Radio's John Ydstie described the initial damage in St. Bernard Parish as "utter devastation."
The Penn group put forth seven to eight hours of work each day in what turned out to be, volunteers said, a very exhausting yet invigorating experience.
"It was 90 plus degrees every day with high humidity, so the conditions were pretty grueling," School of Arts and Sciences Vice-Dean for External Affairs and trip participant Jean-Marie Kneeley wrote in an e-mail.
The group participated in numerous construction projects including installing insulation, installing beneath-house netting, painting, framing and trimming out houses.
The trip was structured as a "service-learning" project in which the group also focused largely on a broad variety of topics when they were not on the work site.
One of these topics was jazz and the cultural history of New Orleans, taught by '72 College alumnus Nick Spitzer.
Lynn Tinto, a resident of New Orleans and a Project Engineer with the Army Corps of Engineers, spoke about the engineering issues related to the failure of the levees during Hurricane Katrina.
Penn faculty also toured one of Louisiana's major bayous, where they had the opportunity to hold a baby alligator.
At the end of the trip, many of the trip's participants described their experience in New Orleans as "life-changing."
"We challenged ourselves physically, learned more about ourselves as individuals and about the power and impact of volunteer service, visited a fascinating part of the country and had some fun," Kneeley said. "I can't think of a better way to spend six days."
