Six months after Katrina, there's still no garbage pickup, no electricity, houses are destroyed, people are displaced, their neighborhoods' abandonned, garbage and debris is everywhere.
I stayed with over 200 volunteers in the kindergarten room of a Catholic school. Because there was still no electricity, it was powered by a generator and there was no hot water.
I helped in the rebuilding effort of the city, focusing most of my time on the Kids and Community Project, developing and implimenting an afterschool tutoring program. I got really attached to a few of the kids in the program, and am trying to figure out how to get back to spend more time down there.
I've never felt so alive in my entire life than when I volunteered in New Orleans. For the first time in my life I really felt like I had a purpose and that I was a part of something much larger and more important than my own individual goals. I have the power to help people and a community that really needs it.
It was truely a life changing and eye opening experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment