Cal State Long Beach students and administrators who volunteered to rebuild houses in Louisiana during spring break presented their experiences at the Anatol Center on Monday.
The students, who were part of the political science class Hurricane Katrina and its Aftermath, showed pictures and a video of their recent “alternative” spring break trip to a disaster-stuck area, where they worked with Habitat for Humanity.
Terre Allen, a professor of communications studies and director of faculty development, organized the event and introduced the idea of an “integrative learning experience.”
“Students learn more from this kind of experience than anything else,” Allen said.
This is the third year CSULB students have been involved in the program, which was implemented by the American Marketing Association.
“They’re a really incredible group of students,” said acting chairman for the linguistics department Tim Caron when describing the 32 students who he accompanied in the program.
The group helped in construction projects on three properties during the week.
“I was impressed with their spirit of service,” said Cecile Lindsay, vice provost for academic affairs and dean of graduate studies, who helped with the building along with Brett Waterfield and Zion Redie from Student Life and Development. Also there for part of the project was CSULB President F. King Alexander.
“He swung a hammer for a righteous cause,” Caron said, describing how Alexander joined the group on Thursday.
In August 2005, the hurricane damaged or destroyed over 275,000 homes along the Gulf Coast – ten times as many as any other natural disaster in U.S. history, according to the organization Hurricane Katrina Relief.
Taylor Kerri, senior philosophy and psychology student, created a slideshow that showed the destruction the group saw and depicted students working with power tools and constructing houses.
“We saw that nothing was back but a Wal-Mart and Home Depot,” Kerri said.
Students shared their experiences and answered questions from the audience.
“It was very emotional,” Kerri said, highlighting the lack of current media coverage. “A lot of people don’t know that much more needs to be done.”
“There is not true New Orleans; it’s two faces put together,” said Drew Dillon, a junior creative writing student.
Students also wrote a daily journal to reflect on their experiences.
“Nobody really knew what to expect,” said Emily Grey, a junior psychology major, describing the people who lost their houses. “I noticed the positive mood; they were so positive about their houses being rebuilt.”
Habitat for Humanity provided the students with the tools, training and supervision they needed for construction, and the residents only had to pay for the materials to build the houses, not the manual labor.
Habit for Humanity also provided students with three meals a day and accommodation at the volunteer camp “Camp Hope” in the St. Bernard Parish, where they slept in bunk beds.
“College students are such an untapped resource,” Kerri said. “We have strength, numbers, enthusiasm and time.”
The group wore CSULB logo T-shirts while they worked and kept up their spirits chanting “Long Beach” and “Camp Hope.”
“I have such tremendous faith in these 32 students and the generation they represent,” Caron said.
